


It's Dark Inside

by seraphenanox



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-05-08 20:20:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 57,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5511755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphenanox/pseuds/seraphenanox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When given a second chance, some people relive memories, others explore missed opportunities.<br/>Tony Stark will get to that really.<br/>He just has a few things to deal with first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue:  Give up your heart left broken

**Author's Note:**

> This plot has been bugging me for a while. After seeing the trailer for Civil War I rewrote the Prologue. Title comes from the Imagine Dragon's song: Demons 
> 
> Marvel/Disney own the Avengers and all related stuff, I'm just playing with them.  
> The OCs are my fault. 
> 
> *Text* is conversation through communicators. 
> 
> Raised to Mature due to bad language, violence, and situations.  
> Also updating tags as I post so I don't spoil anything. 
> 
> A few points on canon.  
> Prologue follows all Movie cannon and unfortunately after that I tried to pull mostly from comic, but there is just too much information. My apologies.   
> 06/27 Edit: It's a mix - mostly MCU and comic stuff where there is no MCU or it just doesn't work. 
> 
> I will be updating tags as need be. 
> 
> On birthdays for most (and note I said most) of the characters I am trying to stick to the DOBs in the movie Wiki. There are a few that I am using the comic book dates for. 
> 
> So since canon has taken a left turn in Albuquerque. I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Feedback is appreciated.  
> I will be posting updates as I can but RL is busy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Made some edits to this chapter. Thank you for the feedback folks!  
>  5/7/2016 - Some minor edits and changes.

# Prologue

 

Pain is in every breath.  It drowns out the shocks from where the exposed wires spark and short.  It overwhelms the where broken bones scream and the gashes cut.  His memory betrays him, replaying each blow and hit.

But this hurts more. 

The harsh breathing and the rough sound of _his_ voice. 

“But he's my friend.”

On his knees, he can’t even remember why and how any more.

The blood drips down his face, blazing strips of heat against ice cold skin.

His eyes are locked that face, the way the smears of light glitter in golden hair and eyes he’s watched a thousand times.  But they are not the brilliant blue of endless skies, these are dark with unnamed things swimming below the surface.  It’s fascinating and nothing he’s ever seen, ever noticed.

_I don't trust a guy without a_ _dark side._ _He’s said that.  But now he is seeing different. He doesn’t know the man behind those eyes any more, more truthfully maybe he never really knew him at all.  Genius, he can’t take that title not really.  Three strikes he is done.  Obie, Ultron, and now Steve, he missed the signs, missed the problems._

_“So was I.”  The words are soft.  The audio of the suit will take them, clean them up, removed the burble of blood in his breath and the spatter of in his words. It will rip away the emotions take away the pain in them._

_And he lets go._

_Words, he hears them echoing in the helmet.  All his strength, all his focus is on just watching those eyes.   But that too is running out.  He has nothing left.  He can’t give any more, no more fighting, no more trying.  Not for Steve and not for the man chosen.  Tony’s eyes flicker over.  Barnes stands in his Captain’s shadow.  The grey blue eyes blaze behind the black.  The fear and anger are so easy to find.  The hopelessness and desperation, those you have to know to see._

_So many things he failed._

_Grey spots dance in his vision and the ground moves.  He’s slipped sideways, not the ground the disharmonic clang shivers up the suit driving pinpoints of cold pain further past what he can bear. No longer are their voices buzzes in the speakers._

_*Sir.* The voice whispers, so very familiar and tears pool in Tony’s eyes. *Your vitals…*_

_He knows it is in the way his heart stutters in his chest.  It’s written in the dark flecks against the HUD._

Penance for his actions and his omissions. 

Could have…

Should have…

“sokay.” He whispers.

*There is nothing I can do Sir.* Such pain in that voice.

It’s okay it really is.  “take…care…of…it?”

*Of course.*

And Anthony Edward Stark felt nothing at all.


	2. Chapter 1:  Weep Not for Roads Untraveled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first part is a little disjointed for a reason: Pain + Drugs + Tony Stark

# Chapter 1

 

Cold.

It arched into him jolting his brain into action.  Eyes snap open.  He can feel it.  The weight of them fighting the urge to close and the cold chill against the orb, but all that registers is darkness. Not night, lights out where the shades of shadows might form, but absolute darkness.

There is pressure in his throat, a tearing grinding force that vibrates against his lungs. 

He is screaming.

Tiny pricks of fire and electricity cascade through him.  Every nerve and every muscle signal in one moment.

Statics crackles and booms in his ears.

He can’t fight it, can’t move away from it.  It stomach twists and curls and bile rises in his throat.  The echo of his coughing is a gunshot in the room.

Blinking, it’s still black, but not so solid.  Cold seeps into him. It’s feeding in from his back, the bare skin against a smooth cold surface.

More sounds, the staccato of gunfire and the hollow boom of explosions.

“-found something.”

That sound, that voice made him understand that there was something, a place, a world beyond the table and the cold.

But he couldn’t see much. Effort, things took so much effort, but then the tiny lines of light sliced lines in the dark. A rectangular shape of white was something ... a door.

There was a door then there must be a room.

He shivered and it set off another wave that rolled his stomach. He tried, really he did, but the choked sob still escaped. Skin pulled and lips burned at the moment.

That light flared for a moment, and hallow boom rattled his ears. He tried to understand what had happened, why it had happen, but he just couldn’t keep up, couldn’t process.

He opened his eyes again and someone was there.

 Half the distance disappeared before the blurry lines focused.   Helmet, goggles, and a thin line gas mask hid the features.  The black armor stirred relief and distrust. 

Light poured in and his eyes flicked to the doorway.  The huge metal door blackened and twisted standing on a single hinge.

“I’ve got eyes on Stark Jr.” there was a pause before he continued. “Get a medic here asap.”

He wasn’t a Jr anything. The protest died in his throat against a wet burble.

Tony, his name was Tony, not Stark and not Jr.

This was a man.  Tony could see him now, but no decal, no insignia, or an emblem.   Is he safe?  Is he saved?

No accent to place in those words, no features to see.

Tony closed his eyes. 

A touch roused him.  Gentle it skimmed his arm, a burn of heat against his cold flesh.  Opening his eyes the man was next to him.  Blue eyes him wide the man checked every exposed inch.

Tony followed where the eyes led.  Thick leather binding around each wrist made him blink. 

“ETA on the Medic?” The man asked. 

There was a touch of the familiar, a name on the tip of his tongue.  But that soft touch of gloved fingers along the buckle has Tony shaking.

He wants to scream or curse when it is opened. No matter how gentle it pulled and something ripped way.  The litany of curses cannot escape the rasping and harsh coughs ignited agony. 

Tony can smell the copper tang and the bitter of rot now.  He can hear the curse from beside him. 

The scraps of flesh and a smear of yellow pus cling to the underside.  He has to look then at his wrist.  Rimmed in black and brown, Tony can see red of muscle and the white bone.

The vision narrows, the tunnels lined with gray.  And he wants it.  He wants to escape this agony.

 “Mr Stark?”

He just wants to drift away again.

Wasn’t he done with this?

His lips trembled, but that is just the cold. He can’t show how little endurance he has left can’t expose how weak he is.

Not until he knows more.

Not until he’s sure.

A rustle of movement and when Tony looks up it’s into a face bare of mask and goggles.

“Mr Stark? Tony? My name is Phil Coulson. You’re safe now.”

Tony jerks back away from those words. Too lean, too young, too smooth. Too impossibly alive.

His heart thuds against his chest, his breath stuttered in his chest. 

The edges become spots, become his vision.

“Get the medic here now!”

~*~

Warm.

Not hot, not desert, but lulling comforting warmth.  Heavy blankets tucked up to his shoulders generated it and soothed and relaxed.  It came from the feel of sheets worn soft and smooth.

He was hearing.  Soft unobtrusive things intruded.  From them he could find the small little hints to of where.  A soft ping rhythmic but not constant against the tick of the clock.  Soft with distance were the scuff of soles and the click of heels.

The familiar bite in the air shaded in the picture building in his mind.  The harsh scrape of antiseptics and the tang of disinfectants rub at his nose.

Drifting he can hear a tick and ping. The pining was a monitor, but that’s an old sound.  Not one he could be hearing in any major hospital and definitely not SHIELD.

Louder sounds make him forget that train of thought.

 “Stark Industries will not pay ransom.” Some said from outside his room.

Tony nodded, it’s a sound policy that his father started...the thought trailed off.

How many times had he heard that harsh tone?  Can’t he recognize those slurred edges?  He shouldn’t, couldn’t, be hearing it.

“Have you seen what that policy has done?  Did you expect them to just give up and walk away?” Satin and steel tempered and trained to be a formidable weapon.

He knew that velvet voice.  Memories cascade through his mind.  An Italian lullaby sung softly in his ear.  The hushed angry arguments he was never supposed to overhear.

Whatever they are arguing about Tony wants to know, needs to know.  What could be so important that she would argue with him in public? 

 “At least he is still alive.”

That voice, this one made him want to scream and snarl, but all that can do is frown.

“I’m surprised you have any opinion on Tony’s condition Mr. Stane.” The dry disapproval was quite clear in the way she used those sweetly formal tones.

It had to be exhaustion, the only thing Tony knew that could make her unable to hide how she really felt. “Neither of you have been in that room for more than five minutes in the last three weeks.”

Three weeks?

“SI cannot-“

“He. Is. Your. Son.” Each was word clearly enunciated and bitten off with the sharp edge of an exclusive boarding school accent.

“ And as my son he understands priorities.“

Those words pulled at a scar thirty years old. All Tony had ever wanted was just a small piece of his father’s attention, his time. He would have moved heaven and earth for a token of his father’s approval.

Thirty years since he had his last chance to get his father’s approval.

Thirty years since he had last heard his mother’s voice.

Thirty damn years.

That can’t be right.

A timer dings and a hiss drowns out the fading conversation. He felt the cold being pushed back into his veins.

No. The voices they have to be wrong, a hallucination, a dream. He shouldn’t...

The morphine pulls him back away from thought, away from reason.

~*~

He opened his eyes again, this time to soft morning light. There was someone sitting next to the bed, he could hear them breathing but the fog in his head made is hard to put the pieces together.

“Tones?”

He blinked and slowly the dark skinned man’s features swan into focus. And he jerked at the impossible sight before him.

_/ Bits of the frame scattered on the floor. Broken and torn. Tossed down like a discarded toy. The colors soot scarred smeared with blood. The lifeless brown eyes staring out the shattered face plate up at the sky./_

“Tony!” The snap of that voice commanded his attention over the furious pings of the monitors. “Look at me.”

How many times had Rhodey used those same words? His eyes moved out of training and habit before Tony could consciously decide. The breath stuttered in his chest.

Gangly, tall, and young, Rhodey stood there fingered white knuckling the bed rail. It’s a face without the lines of the years and the worries and still needs slimming down from the childhood roundness.

“Come on man, calm down or they’re going to kick me out.”

Tony studied the MIT shirt the other man wore. He knew that shirt. He had seen Rhodey wearing the battered and beaten thing. It was a comfort, something that came out only after the roughest times or Tony, being his most extreme.

The last time that shirt had seen the light; the fabric had been paper things and the wording present only in the slight discoloration and fragments of lines. This one was sharp clear lines and edges. Almost brand new.

He fought against the drugs. He had to have control. He had too many years in front of the camera; too much time on display. He has to be in control. There is no time for weakness, no time to relax.

/”Stark men are made of Iron”/

All the years of drinking and other times means he can push this aside work through the morphine. He's done it through worse.

Breathing first and with it heart rate. It's a mantra and a meditation: each inhale and exhale was smoother than the one before. The monitor slowed and calmed until it was back to the slow steady state.

He could do this.

The last of the drug fog burned away and a host of little things made themselves known. The pressure of bandages; underneath them the cuts and bruises pulse in time to his heartbeat.

“Rhodey?” It was more a croak than actual words and scratched like razor down his throat.

“Yeah Tones, I’m here.” The smile he got was fondly affectionate. Untainted, young. Tony had to close his eyes against the wave of shame and not a little affection for that young man yet unspoiled by him.

“Doc’s said to tell you not to talk too much.” A half smile tries to cover the concern. “I know that’s going to be rough, but you can do it.”

A spoon full of ice chips moved into his range of vision and Tony sucked on them greedily. The worst of the burn subsided with the first mouthful. Two more took care of the rest. He knew what that sensation meant; he had been on a ventilator.

When he was offered more Tony just shook his head and leaned back into the pillow. Rhodey set the cup on the bedside table and leaned back into his chair.

“Your mother said she’d be back in a little bit.”

He had a life time experience controlling his expression in front of those searching for some little hint of scandal; he could handle a teenager with less than 3 years’ experience.

Tony felt his lips curl, and let them. “She’s going to be pissed.”

His smile widens at the soft whack on his nose with the spoon; a reminder not to talk too much.

“You always have to be difficult don’t you.”

He gives the older man the best press grin and leans back into his pillow.

You have no idea.

Nothing made sense no matter how he tried to put the pieces together it just didn’t make sense. Rhodey here, and had he really heard his mother, father and Stane arguing?

His eyes flickered around the room. From the medical equipment to the TV balanced precariously one of those extending arms.

Big, boxy and so very out of date, it’s unbelievable. The sound is off but the news anchors are babbling about some issue in East Germany.

It’s making his head hurt worse.

The clothes, the hair, the set style even the technology as they wait for one of their onsite reporters is just wrong.

_/“Gather data.“_

_Tony glances at the other man but doesn’t turn from his monitor. “That’s it? That’s your advice?”_

_"When you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better.”_

_When he turns Bruce is polishing his glasses. But there is a slight smile on the man’s lips._

_But what if the answer doesn’t make sense? “ Tony looks up a the other scientist. He knows he’s not fooling the other scientist with this line of questions._

_"See Step 1.”/_

“What happened?” he asked because Rhodey looked like he needed Tony to do something, to say something.

It’s perfect dramatic timing. The door swings open and heavy booted feet marched in. One look and he knew exactly where he was.

“We were hoping you could tell us that Mr. Stark.”

The growling tone wasn’t new, but seeing two eyes in Nick Fury’s face was.

A bubble of laughter escaped before Tony could stop it. It scraped his raw throat and his lungs protested. It’s only then at his eyes catch the date on the white board.

Tuesday April 13, 1990.

He will blame the drugs for the fact he just can’t stop laughing.


	3. Chapter 2: I created the sound of madness -  “Sound of Madness” Shinedown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought about going with a more cannon character for this part, but was also struggling with character concepts for writing project. 
> 
> While Marvel and Disney own the Avengers and all that, 
> 
> Dr. Buchanan is mine.  
> Warning for panic attacks and PTSD.  
> 05/07/2016 - Doing some Revision to the first parts, mostly because I can't stop.

He can’t stop.  Tears fill his eyes and run down his cheeks.  They blur the world into vague shapes.  It’s normal for a mind to process to fill in the spot.  In the exhaustion, in the face of the pain and drugs it can only be expected. 

_The flicker of Fury’s leather coat when the man was in motion._

_Coulson slumped against the wall his chest wet with blood._

When the tone of the laughter changed, when it tipped to hysteria the tears dried, but he still saw, still heard.

_/ “Stark, are you seeing any of this?”_

_”Seeing, still working on believing.”/_

The air lodged in his lungs, razors cut into this throat.

_/“We were standing right under it. We're the Avengers, we can bust weapons dealers the whole doo-da-day, but how do we cope with something like that?”_

_“Together.”_

_“We'll lose.”_

_“ We do that together too.”/_

A team, he had had that to back him up.  They had been his sword and his shield.

_/“And for gosh's sake, watch your language! “_

_Steve shook his head. “That’s not going away anytime soon.” /_

_Just as he had been theirs._

_/” You should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top 10 floors all R &D, you'd love it... it's candyland.”/ _

_Until the end it had come crashing down._

_/”He is my friend!”_

_“So was I.”/_

Words in his ears battled the ones in his mind jumbling together in a smear of sound that he had no will, no strength for.  He saw the hands reaching for him.  Bloody, rotted hands of the dead and he flinched away. 

Sounds of worry slithered between screams and curses.

He was sorry, so very sorry. He had to tell them.  Had to let them know and maybe they would let him go.  Let him fade.  Let him be.

Maybe they would forgive him.

Warmth curled around him, from the core it blossomed and sheltered. The visions swan and faded.  Rhodey gaining color, losing the lines and the gray.

Comfort and distance like a blanket, arms wrapping around him pushing the rest to heel.  Not gone, they would be, had to be looked at, but later all of that later.

Drum beat under his hand.  A fierce and strong…heartbeat and he opened his eyes.

Hazel eyes snared his pulling him and grounding him.  It was soft, the fabric of the white coat, the touch of skin at her neck.   He could lean in and it would be okay.  Safe, he was safe.

No, safety was an illusion.  Once you thought you had it, it would slip through your fingers. Hadn’t he tried.  Hadn’t he built and rebuild himself on promises of strength, promises of friendship.  Those simple words, You’re safe and I’ve got you.  Foundations that he thought so enduring so strong crumbled away like sand and salt.

 “Tony.”  The hurricane of thoughts just stopped.  Stilled against the words laced with a brogue and all the pain and self-doubt set aside for the determination in green and brown eyes.

A second or a thousand years, Tony stared into the brown flecked green.  No walls, no deceit just strength of will and something he couldn’t define rested in those eyes.  No masks, nothing hidden in them at all.

He blinked.  She had a scattering of freckles on her cheeks and several tiny white scars near her left ear.  His mind scattered flipping through images trying to match that pattern, those thin lines were shrapnel scars.

 “Tony I need you to focus on me.”  He snapped back to her eyes, seeing how the intense the green was, it was dark green.  Not the glass green of Romanov or the radioactive of the Hulk.

“Tony.”  The word was softer and tugged redirecting him again. 

“Can you feel that? Can you match it?”

That rise and fall became his whole world.  No one existed but them.  Nothing but the slow steady beat of her heart and the measured inhalations.

He heard someone speaking, buzzing at his ears. 

Her gaze never wavered, not so much as a flicker.  He was the sole focus of her unrelenting attention.  Determination thrumming through her that would outlast stars.  Steve would be…Tony jerked away from that thought.  He couldn’t face it.

All he wanted was the offer of sanctuary in steadiness of the brown rings.  The secrets and steel in the green woke his curiosity.  Slowly the bands stilled and then loosed from his chest.  He could manage to even out the hiccupping stutter.  Then only then could Tony match pace with her.

Time wasn’t measured, the span didn’t matter.  He never lost her gaze, never closed his eyes.  All their work was the calm slow progression of breaths. 

“Good.” She smiled.  He caught the flash of a dimple with that smile, a real one smile. 

There was silence now, just the sound of their breathing.

Steady, that’s how she felt to him.  Solid, and unmoving, a lifeline that gave support without boundaries, without limits.  Freeing just because it existed and there should it be needed.  Trusting it, that would be a later question.  Right now it was nothing more than a safety net, and trust…well something for later.  

Tony wished and wanted.  He wished that the world didn’t exist that he could just ignore it, but it did exist and wanted a piece of Anthony Edward Stark.

Tony allowed himself to see the way Rhodey clenched the arms of his chair.  He took in how young he looked and the unlined face.  He accepted the brown eyes were not world, and Tony, weary.

He steeled himself to see the silent grimness of Fury’s posture and the way two eyes studied him in return.  He didn’t shudder to acknowledge Coulson standing at the man’s shadow. 

He couldn’t allow this to control him. He had to be strong.  He could never show how bad this was affecting him.  He could never admit to any weakness.

 “Stop.” The gentle hiss snapped the thought.   “Focus on me Tony, not them.  They are not important.” 

He felt so very tired.  But he did as he was told.

“That’s perfect Tony.”  Tony smiled back as she smiled.  The warmth and the comfort wrapped around him.  It was so very …

He didn’t protest as she helped him to lie back down.  Heavy eyelids drooped and he just felt himself drifting, but never too far from the sense of safety.

He didn’t feel it when she stood up.  He could see the room.  The fear, the pain and the confusion were all distant.  Not gone, they just were not important now.

Tony couldn’t see her face, but the way she set her shoulders, the tensing of muscles along her neck and arms.  A stab of grief pierced through the comfort.  How many times had he seen Cap stand just like that?  How many times had Natasha taken the same pose before lighting into someone?

“Get out.”  The words seemed to resonate in the air to his sleep fogged brain.  It was will in spoken form and whispered of what would happen should the recipient not comply.

“We need to debrief –“

Trying to intimidate someone that had just talked her way through a panic attack, a doctor who had strength of will that Tony could not comprehend a limit for.

That was not going to work. 

In fact… he started mentally counting down the seconds.

There was a flash of amusement.

“Agent Fury, I suggest that you and your compatriot take this opportunity to walk out the door before I have security escort you.”

He wished he could see her face.  The Scottish brogue thickened with every word.  And when she took a step forward they stepped back.

“Time is a factor doctor. “

“I can understand your belief in that.  But he is my patient and after this.”  She gestured towards him. “I don’t think he’s going to be up to your questions any time soon.”

She took another step and the men backed up.

She was amazing and terrifying.  He would have never believed that anyone would be able to make Nicolas Fury step back or down.  But this slender woman was forcing them back towards the open door.  He couldn’t decide if that scared him or if he was in love.

“You are not the senior physician.” Fury growled. 

A burble of a smile twisted Tony’s lips.  He loved watching things go boom.

“Are you certain about that?” The tone was sweet and sharp like razor edged thorns. 

And then she closed the door in their faces.

“Problem one dealt with then.” She said smiling sweetly dusting off her hands. 

“Mr. Rhodes, how long are you staying?”

“Until Visiting hours are over?” 

Really, did Rhodey just squeak?

She nodded sharply and sat back down on the side of his bed.

“Good please keep an eye on your friend here.” She placed a hand on Tony’s forehead as if feeling for a fever.  “I’m Dr. Buchanan.”

His eyes felt heavy and he drifted off again to the sound of her talking quietly with Rhodey.

~*~

He didn’t stir until something woke him.  Instinct honed by experience had him rolling off the bed, or at least trying too.  The first spike of, not pain, just discomfort pulled him from half asleep to fully awake. 

“I’m sorry, but hospital policy is quite clear on this.”  Buchanan, her accent sharp and crisp, but why would that have woken him like that.

“I can understand your position Ms. Buchanan.”  His hands cleaned so hard Tony could feel the nails bitting into his skin.  Yeah, that voice would have him reaching for a weapon.

Taking a deep breath Tony settled back into bed.  This was not the time, not yet.

“Would it be alright for me to see how he is doing?” A little bit of a question, but more one that indicated that the answer should be obvious.

“Visiting hours for non family members are from 9 am until 6 pm.”  There was a pause, and then she continued.  “I can see if Mr. Stark is awake and up to guests.”

Mr Stark, Tony snorted.  She hadn’t called him Mr Stark since that first day. Not after that first panic attack, and the two that had come later.  But he also frowned when the rest of her words it him.

Up to guests?  He glanced at his bandages.  The wounds on his wrists and ankles itched and maybe ached. The ones on his chest, he pulled out the front of the hospital shirt.  Still wrapped, more for the cracked ribs, but he took a deep breath anyway, no burn, no pain. 

Looking at the clock Tony’s lips twisted in a sardonic smile.  Part of him wondered what Stane did to aggravate her to this level.  It was quarter till nine, and if she was pushing hospital regs, she was pissed.

“I can understand that, but would you please indulge a man visiting his godson.

So smooth and charming on the surface, Tony thought pulling the blankets back into position.

“Please stay here while I check.”

He wondered if Stane could hear it in her tone, just how little the older man’s tone had worked on her. And he dearly wanted to know who had taught her to deliver such a backhanded insult by just her tone.

He schooled his expression at the knock and bled all the humor from his face when the door opened.

Normally she’d come all the way in to talk to him.  But not this time. This time she leaned against the door frame with just enough space to see and be seen. 

“Are you up for company?” The tone shaded to polite straight neutrality, an attempt to not influence his answer. 

That put him on high alert as did her appearance.

No matter the hour, early or late every time Tony had seen her she was neat and tidy in her appearance.  It screamed military training, but so far she hadn’t actually answered him on that yet.

Now her badge was half tucked into her shirt pocket.  Her white coat was missing as was the stethoscope that she often looped around her neck and complete forgot about.  The honey brown hair was still pulled back but the pins were gone and tendrils escaped to curl around her face softening the lines and making her look much younger than she was. 

She could be a nurse or an intern or even an aide.  But few would suspect that she held the title of Doctor. 

She’s playing Stane.  That’s was obvious, but why?  Tony knew he was missing time, not sure how long he had been in the hospital.  Vague memories of Stane’s voice and Howards but not enough context to know if it has been here or somewhere else.  Had she and Stane clashed before?  He didn’t think so Stane had a different way of approaching those the man already knew were not on his side.  Had she picked up on something then?  It was a little bit of a blow to his ego if she had.  Tony had known Stane almost all his life and had never clued in, not until the end.

But he couldn’t understand why she held her self that little edge of rigid or why her focus was so intense.  He knew what it meant.  He’d seen similar before, Hawkeye sighting in a target or the way Cap -.

He pulled the errant thought back.  So the doctor with the steady hands and the quiet voice had a combat mode.  Interesting.

Curiosity was his besetting sin after all.

He rolled his eyes when she cocked an eyebrow and leaned against the door. It wasn’t about his musings rather not just about his musing, seeing the way that Stane was edging into her space.  Obie was a tall and imposing man and he used it.  But this slender woman didn’t even react. 

She quirked a smile as he settled back into the bed and curved into the blankets, the very picture of pain and exhausted.

If her eyes get a little intense to study him, Tony takes it as a compliment that his portrayal is that good.

“Sure.” He keeps his tone soft and just a touch before the normal exuberance.

The other eyebrow joins the first before she resettles her expression.  They were going to have words later, but now he needs to not be the forty five year old with the memories of betrayal and torture at this man’s hands. 

That conversation will come later, and not involve Tony being defenseless.  Not this time.

Now is the time to take the stage to be an injured seventeen year old meeting with a family friend. 

When Stane pushes past her Tony sees the glimpse of amusement she allows herself.  Oh she knows exactly what Tony is up to.  She doesn’t bother to move or even react to the size difference, just gives Tony a deferential nod.

“Mr. Stane” she announces a little belatedly. “I’ll bring up your breakfast in a few minutes and you have PT assessment in forty five minutes.”

That’s a lie he leaves alone.  She’s been handling his PT.  In fact she and one of the aides had been his primary caretakers with barely a visit from any other doctors.  Now the curiosity was overwhelming.  But it had to wait. 

He had to assume a role, wear the mask and walk the stage. His stomach twisted and rolled.  

The danger is right in front of him.  He can’t watch her leave. He can focus on the footsteps and the closing of the door.

His hands are trembling.  They are hidden under the sheet but still.  Just having Stane his close churns all the betrayal, all the pain.  Sheer willpower pushes back the panic attack.  When the man grabs him into a hug he stiffens.

“Sorry Tony.”  Those observant eyes flicker over him when Stane helps him lean back on to the bed.

Tony manages a sheepish smile as he flexes one wrist into the mattress just to have the focal point of pain.

“It’s alright.” Tony manages rubbing his ribs with the other.  “Good to see you too Obie.” The cheerful tone tastes bitter on his lips.

Play the rube, the invalid.  A bruised pride now and they will give you more room later.

For a chance to end this now, before the torture, before the betrayal, Tony will play it all day and night.

There is a bit of a thrill paired with the disgust. 

Do Clint and Natasha…Did they feel this way. The way it hurts to push the pride away?  How long did it take them to ignore instincts to just end the problem?

_/ “You grandstand and expect people to fall at your feet.”_

_He looks up at the sharp tone and pinched expression.  The urge to tell the great Captain just how wrong he is lingers on the tip of his tongue.  Tony ignores it.  It hurts a little that the man’s mind is already made up.  What would be the point of trying to change it?_

_He puts on the mask and his smile is bright and camera perfect.  “Of course I do.  People expect the show.  I do hate to disappoint them.”_

_“And the adoration?”  Not scorn in the voice, not now.  Tony doesn’t flinch from the searching gaze._

_“It’s all good.” He smiles still and never shows how much those words hurt./_

“I’m sorry it took me too long to come visit.” Stane settles himself in the chair.  “Maria has kept me informed as to how you were doing. “

The smile was broad and every movement the perfect expression of concern. 

“I understand things are busy.”  Tony shifts back a little.  “I do appreciate you coming to visit.”

Stane pats his hand. “You know your father would…”

He manages a tired sigh and Tony allows the old disappointment to rise. “He’s busy.  I know. Business first.”

“I really hoped he would be able to make it, but there were meetings…” the older man just shrugged a little.

A part of Tony wanted to know just how honest this was.  Knowing the real Stane and all the manipulation the man had been capable of how much of Howard’s attitude or at least Tony’s perception of it had been wrong.  When had the manipulation really started?

“Are you missing much school?”

“I few more presentations, but the work is pretty much done.  I should have my first Ph.d by this summer.”  Not like that mattered really any more.

“What will you do after?”

There was nothing but genuine interest there, no clue as to what Stane was really fishing for.  Tony just shrugged.  “I might take some time off.  Dad always complains that I don’t take enough interest in the business.”

Stane frowned and sighed.  “Tony you can’t get your hopes up.  I know you want to make Howard happy, but you also need to think about the future.  Enjoy being young. Take time off, but do something fun.”

Fun for Stane translated into Tony working on the next best Stark Industries project. And that ladies and gentlemen was never going to happen.  He wasn’t going to be pushed aside, left to rot until his parents were dead. Not this time.

They talked more, or Tony let Stane ramble a little more about the business talking about things the Research group had going.  Tony just put his brain on autopilot for single syllable answers and closed his eyes.   R&D was the same group of stagnated morons that he had fired.  God what he wouldn’t give to have Bruce or hell even Pym. 

He turned his shock into a wince of pain.  He could, he could do it. 

“Are you okay?”  That concern was so tempting.

“Just tired.”  He admitted playing the stotic teen manfully trying to be strong. 

There was a flash of disappointment in Stane’s eyes, nothing that showed on his face, but Tony saw it. 

“I’ll let you rest them.  Remember what I said.”  He gripped Tony’s hand again patting it firmly.  Tony used that spark of discomfort and winced again just as the door opened.

The smell from the tray Buchanan carried made his stomach rumble.  He was hungry all the time damn it.  He ignored the understanding guffaw from Stane and Lydia’s smirk.

But then another smell caught his attention.  Coffee, Tony could identify the good from the bad by scent alone and this, this smelled like heaven the dark thick brew that doctors’ hid and horded.  The stuff that could strip wallpaper and discolor metal and he wanted it.

“Take care son.”  Another pat and Stane rises to leave.

 “I do apologize but Mr. Stark does need to eat.”  Her smile was charming but even though she put the tray next to his bed the cover was left on. 

There were certain qualities that Tony always fell for.  Appearance was never as high as the tabloids would have everyone believe.  Besides intelligence Tony always appreciated competence and skill.  And Lydia was unbelievable.  The smooth delivery, the sweetheart tone and the way she appealed to Stane’s own stated concern for Tony’s health. The shine of deference was just icing.

A gentle smooth thrust that the victim would never feel being herded to the result she wanted.  Beautiful, and now he wanted to know just how often she’d been using it on him.

Tony pretends his exhaustion just a little bit longer, holding it while the man leaves and the footsteps fade from the hall.

Lydia’s mocking applause was completely unnecessary and just a bit hypocritical.

“oh was that too much?” He opens his eyes and gives her a cheeky grin.  He can feel it stretching some of the cuts on his face, but it doesn’t matter.  He’s floating on the rush, that trill from a job done well.  He loves endorphins.

“No not at all Mr. Stark.” The brogue may have been thick but the sarcasm was thicker.

“You started it.” The retort slides away when she takes away the cover.  He is hungry, very hungry.  Eggs, toast, bacon heaped on the plate and TWO cups of coffee.  The smell sang to him. 

“Did I?” she grabbed both cups and the whine just slipped out. 

“Come on really?” He hadn’t had coffee in too long.  It was a little surprising he hadn’t gone into caffeine withdraw.

“Why are you being mean to me?”

“Coffee will stunt your growth.”  She took a deep sip from one of the cups.

“Cruel so very cruel, anyone ever tell you that your bedside manner is atrocious?”

Her smile is wicked. “I believe it’s been said once or twice, but I’ve never noticed it.”

She’s taunting him. The long drinks and blissed expression are beyond mean.  And it hits him.  She’s not treating him like he is a seventeen year old son of a rich many.  Lydia is teasing and tormenting him like he’s just another person, maybe even…

“You know.” She says looking at him with one of those intense gazes again.  “I’m am a little horrified that you can simulate pain tells so well.”

He just shrugs.  One hand the change of subject is nice, on the other the topic is minefield. “Spend your life in front of a camera you learn real quick what to hide. I was just doing the opposite.”

Mostly the truth.

She comes back to his bed and hold out the cup she hasn’t been drinking from. His brain is shrieking, gibbering but his arm move without hesitation. He wants that cup.  Something else to consider later.

“So why the girl Friday routine?” He asks when she readjusts her clothing. 

“Stane was here for an hour before coming up to the floor.” She says like it supposed to mean something to him.

“So?”

“He was asking a lot of questions and trying to get his hands on your chart.”

That made his raise an eyebrow.  “Again so?  He’s my father’s partner and old friend of the family.  He’s going to ask questions.  It’s kind of the thing he does.” 

He can’t trust Stane that’s a given, but that doesn’t mean he can fully trust her either.   She’s been great and wonderful to the seventeen year old, but Tony is too vulnerable.

Her stare is weighted and he can feel how heavy it is. She’s come to some sort of decision.  “I have the only copy of your file and it is with me at all times.”  She places it on his lap.  He was kind of hoping to eat but they are apparently having this conversation now.

“Why?”  The first section are all hand written notes. But he sees that they start from March 23.  The handwriting is the same neat and precise written he’s seen from her.  Later sections are hurried and abbreviated.

“I was the senior member of the medical team when SHIELD brought you in.”

“Where?” he can’t remember there is nothing between seeing Coulson and waking up here.

“Sennelager Germany.” Her lips are a hard thin line.

“I was found in Germany?” Maybe he should have taken the debrief with Fury, maybe then he’d know more.  “How the hell did I end up in Germany?”  He’s been taken from a party at MIT.  Hell the last time he’d walked out warehouse where those idiots had been keeping him, it had been still in Boston.  This didn’t make sense at all.

“I don’t know.” She said calmly and reached over flip through the file.  Now he was glad he hadn’t eaten.  The pictures were graphic.  Only one shot was of his face, turned at angle to capture the extensive bruising along his jaw and the cuts on his cheek.  March 23 is blazoned on each photo.  Reflexively his hand reaches up to touch his face.  There was no discoloration, not a hint of the bruises.  The cuts are just thin red lines.  Nothing like the deep gashes appearing on the photos. 

His wrist and ankles make the bile rise in his throat.  Stark white hints of bone peer out of the mess of shredded muscles and skin.  Unwrapping one wrist he can only star at the raised edges of the healing flesh, the skin knitting together flawlessly.  Three weeks, he should still have seeping wounds, there should be concern about his mobility, his dexterity. He rotated the wrist, he could feel the pull of healing skin, but just like he’d gotten a scratch, not…

/He yanks against the bound.  There is nothing else he can do, the waves of panic fight with the pain.  Both swamp him under and any chance of rational../

“Tony.” Sharp but kind, cool but still full of some emotion. It rips him from the memory.

“Sorry.”  But he’s seen healing like this before. Hell he’s seen healing faster than this.  But not him never him.

“Stane wanted to see this.” She said.  “I regretfully“, Tony snorted at the word choice, but she just went on.  “I regretfully explained that because you are a minor I would not be able to give him the file or show it to him.  Only you and your parents have the right to view this file.  I will make the argument to them that as a seventeen year old that you should be the only one with access to it.”

That was…unbelievable. And begged another question. 

“Why?”

He couldn’t read the look she gave him. “When you were brought in Tony were didn’t think you were going to survive.  Dehydration, malnourishment, and those wounds?  Infection alone should have been so rampant, but it wasn’t. “  She took a deep breath.  “And when I saw that not only was there no infection, but once we got nutrients and hydration going that you starting healing at an accelerated rate.  I couldn’t risk anyone else seeing it.”

She didn’t know him.  He was just a body on the table, but why?

“He’ll try to go over your head.  He’ll work to get your fired or reassigned.”

Her lips twitched a few times.  “I so want to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.”

“Why would you be being willing to lose your career over me?”

He was missing something, he had to be.

“First, I am not risking anything.  A leanbh (Scottish little one),” he wanted to be insulted at the term and the way she stroked his hair, but it was too much of a comfort. “I’m not a resident.  I’m not a member of this hospital. And Stane the arrogant ass, would need more power than he has even in his dreams to get me reassigned.  I’m a visiting physician fully accredited in the US and one of the leading experts in combat trauma available to be your dedicated physician.”

And it made a horrible amount of sense.  “So this is just a favor, taking care of Howard Stark’s kid.” God it hurt, why did it always hurt.

The hand curled around his cheek tugging him back to look at her.  “No it wasn’t just a favor.  I stayed because I couldn’t let anyone else see what I was seeing.  I couldn’t risk that until I knew what the hell was going on.  The favor made it easier. I’ll have some explaining to do.  But then you kind of grew on me.”

He smiled.  Maybe, just maybe.

“Like a fungus.”

Dramatically he rolled his eyes, and covered his face with the free arm. “Thank you for that wonderful blow to my ego.”

Just like that the tension faded.

“So” he breathed and pulled the tray over to cover the pictures.  The healing kind of explained the hunger. “What’s going on?”

“I’m waiting for some additional information, but I don’t know.  The only source I’ve got is the same person that asked me to be here.  I can’t ask your parents and I sure as hell can’t do any real testing.  This isn’t my hospital so I can’t risk someone else walking off the samples or a copy of the results.

High level of paranoia, skilled, competent and willing to stand up against Fury.  “You’re not SHIELD are you?”

“Good God no.” she actually sounded a little offended, but it was an honest guess. “I know some people in SHIELD, but no thank you.”

He thought about all the pieces and his brain made one of those jumps. “Peggy Carter.”

Her smile was sharp.  “We’ve met.” The tone was smug and just a bit approving?

“She’s the favor.”

Lydia nodded.  “She asked and wants to meet soon, but I wanted to wait until we could talk before I did.”

“Why?” He was beginning to sound like a broken record.

“Because I won’t report anything you don’t want me to.” He could hear the sincerity in her tone.  She was being completely honest with him.  It still surprised him.  “You are an intelligent thinking individual.  You deserve not just the common courtesies, but any deference for what you’ve been through.  Director Carter will either understand that or she won’t.”

“She will.” Tony affirmed.

The smile curled up on one corner.  “Then we have nothing to worry about do we?”

He just stared at her for a moment before taking a deep drink.  “What’s this we?”

They both laughed.

 

~*~

The chill of the glass felt so good against his forehead.  He tracked the beads of moisture as they formed and fell.  Absently the precise process and calculations of dew points and saturation levels ticked behind his eyes.

He’d joked that his memory was photographic, a convenient label but too inaccurate.  Anything he spared even a sliver of his attention on was captured in crystal clean high definition.  The sharper the focus the more details and even surround sound retained and stored.  Conversations, comments, books, music, actions and reactions available to tease and torment whenever his subconscious needed another piece to torture him with or god forbid he needed to recall it.

There were so many things he didn’t want to think about, to recall.

So yes he remembered waking up in that warehouse.  The idiots hadn’t bothered to do more than tie him to the bed, badly.  Five minutes of work and he was striding out the door.  Out one weekend and with a killer hangover but barely bothered.

This, this wasn’t right.

Maybe this wasn’t real.  Maybe this was just another villain and another attack. 

And it’s it just another example of how fucked up his life is that he can list out all the ways that this could be just a dream or drug fuel world and find the counterpoints against them?

Not a dream either.  Mostly the same reason people he didn’t know and never met.  He could read the clock the words on the files. 

Dreams pulled from memories and fears.  Sometimes they were twisted and sometimes they were just fantasies, but always based on memories and fears.

Not a drug dream, too many point diverging.  There were too many people he’d never met unfamiliar and distinct enough that it wasn’t projection or assimilation of other people in to a new form.

Next possibility: Outside influences.

One breath, and then another.

Loki, to go to name when shit gets weird with a side of twisted.  He’d been awake an aware for almost five days now and not even a hint of the gold and green or a whiff of crazy.  And people called him narcissistic; Reindeer Games had him beat by a mile.  He’d never could resist showing up if not to brag but to rub it in that he was there under the guise of dropping some cryptic b.s. and poof out again. 

So that left two possibilities.

The rattle of the window glass pulled him up sharply.  Staring at his clenched fist it’s tempting to just put his fist through it.  Breath by breath Tony relaxes the fingers and lays them flat on the glass.

Insanity was a recurring nightmare since his childhood.  Adults whispered about it seeing he preferred the inside of his own head to playing with other children.  It had been bandied about by the media when the drinking and the drugs had started.  The go to label used when they just didn’t understand him and he hadn’t understood what the hell people wanted.

 So yes he could have finally cracked, this could be just a world built in his head.  The war had been bad enough. Losing the people that had stood by him when…others hadn’t had been difficult. Loosing Rhodey and Happy had almost killed him.  Watching the way Steve, there he said the name; the way Steve had looked at him had fought him.  And then he had killed him.

Tony’s hands drifted down his chest, no reactor, no rt.  No bits of bone and none of the sickness of his blood.  No twisted shards of metal that had pierced his side when shield and fist slammed home. 

_But that was then._

_This is now._

A sharp pain stabbed at his head and his chest, but Tony pushed past it.  He refused to acknowledge the memories dancing behind his eyes.  Later, he’d deal with it later if it would only let him be.

Maybe the mirror had finally cracked. Maybe he was in some twisted Kansas.

That didn’t change a fucking thing.  If he was what could he do about it?  There was no magical cure, no miraculous exit.  So could he just ignore the possibility that he really had lost the plot and was left to wallow in fracture memories?

Occam’s Razor.

Reality or Insanity didn’t matter.  Not when there was no one else, and nothing to hold on to.

He could pretend though.  He could close his eyes and just pretend.  There was no real harm in it.  Just for a few minutes he could make himself believe that Clint is looking through the vents and any moment would drop down.  Bruce was just around the corner working on some analysis or finally sleeping off the last Code Green.  It is easy to think that Natasha would just appear by his side if he lost focus. 

Tony scrubbed his face.  It was pointless, they weren’t here they wouldn’t be here.  No amount of wishing or dreaming would change that.  A bitter laugh echoed in the room. He was such a mess. Hadn’t he been the one so proud of this do it himself attitude.  Hadn’t he revealed in the labels narcissistic and self-centered.   When he had he lost the iron in his bones? When had he grown so used to having them around that now it was like missing a limb?

He could hear Clint’s laughter. 

Clint would have laughed.

Or it could be real.

Madness, it wasn’t like he didn’t have cause.  Was it so hard to believe that the war had finished what all the other things in his life had started?  Friend against friend and families torn apart it wasn’t such a stretch to image that this time he was just another casualty?

Maybe, Maybe, Maybe.  

It this is real it is just as lonely, there is no Clint, No Agent, No Steve, No Bruce nor Thor.  Pepper is still years away and Rhodey is finishing his degree and will wind through the Air Force in a few months.

Just him. 

Just like before.

Doesn’t play well with others.  Not a team player.  Not recommended. 

_/ Apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, and don't play well with others._

_That I did know./_

Lived it, loved it.  Then he had gotten five people that had been just as broken.   

_Clarity sucks.  It’s brutal and harsh and never leads to anything good._

They had shifted and fitted together.  One person’s strengths helping to shore up someone else’s flaws until all he had wanted was to stay there, to be the person they needed. 

Sand and salt.

_Silence isn’t golden, it’s deafening._

All he has is silence.  No one sat on the hard plastic chairs.  No one would sneak in bits of tech to help keep him distracted.  Tony can’t pretend that one of them isn’t lurking down the halls or up in the ceiling, because the silence is all encompassing and will not break.

Reboot to a base state. 

_Take away the suit and what are you?_

Out the window the moonlight and night purge the world of shades.  The night takes the dark colors shifting them to unrelenting black.  There is mercy in the moonlight for the softer ones dressing them silver. 

No one, not AIM or Hydra, or a god could have found a better way to break him. 

But here he was.

Take away the money, the business, the team. 

Billionaire, gone.  There is some trust money, but nothing that is really his.

Playboy, gone by his own hand.  Seventeen the first time through had been a cavalcade of meaningless sex and drunken parties between bouts of inventing and his first Ph’d.  The thought of it now makes his guts twist. Not after he’s seen what real emotion is about, how it can fill up those hollow spaces.

Philanthropist, that his mother not him.  Not yet.  

_Who are you really?_

There were no answers to be found outside, nothing whispered in the wind.  He quirked a smile and still felt the edge of the bitterness. Any answers, any plans were on him, in himself.

_Stand up, get up, and keep going._

/ _Nimble fingers carded through his hair.  He could look up at those green eyes now and understand what was behind the barriers. Worry, annoyance and just a little bit of concern._

_“One step at a time.” Natasha said running her hands through his hair again./_

Start with what you have, go to what you need and then plan to get it.

A breath, tension binding his muscles loosened.  Another slow and steady the headache receded.  He could focus now. There is one thing no one can take away, no one can steal it or repossess, his mind.  That wonderfully powerful and flawed organ with close to 30 years of extra experience still lodged in it.  A giant head start of things to do and, he smiles slightly, more than triple of things not to do.

The man that had built his first suit from scraps in a cave; he’d take what he had and build from there. 

Like the blacksmith needing just a hammer, Tony just needed his brain.  He could build everything else.

Funding, Tony shifted to lean back against the wall.  He had some money maybe enough to get started from the Trust his father had set up for him.  People, resources, and information those would be the challenges. He needed the information first.  He needed to figure out exactly where things stood. 

He just needed a foundation, a place to stand on so he could reach the stars.

Allies were another concern.  .  He wanted his team, but they were scattered.  Bruce was years yet from the Big Green.  Natasha was still in the winds that in between stage from KGB and SHIELD. Clint, Tony struggled to remember lining up the date with what little Clint had said of his childhood.  A year or two younger the archer was still with the circus or just leaving it.  Thor, Tony shook his head with a laugh, no clue.  Steve, just thinking about the other man was like poking at a broken bone.  Hurt like hell. So all the ones he could think of trusting, at least with their base states, out of reach and out of touch. 

That one accidental thought brought up more.  Memories slipped in, standing side by side.  The way they had talked, the quirk of Steve’s lips when Tony babbles, the way he would relax when they watched a movie. The way Steve had just walked away.  He didn’t have to deal with it, not now.  Steve was trapped in ice; floating in that suspended sleep.  Tony didn’t have to face it, think about.

Tony slammed those memories silent.

No Cap, and the Winter Soldier…

His eyes snapped wide.

December 1991.  April 1990.

Twenty months.

So reality or insanity it didn’t matter.  So fuck it, fuck them and fuck it all.  He was here and here he would stay until whatever happens happened.


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A house is where you can exist. A home is where you can live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Notes: Apparently there is a hell of a lot of confusion on Tony Stark’s birthdate for MCU. So I’m going with 1972 since I need him 18 at the time of his parent’s death. So even though the movie shows him 17 in 1991, I goofed, but rolling with it. 
> 
> Also I am adding in story dates to the chapters and subchapters as necessary, I thought about doing a countdown timer, but that was just a bit too much work. But if folks want that I can change it up.

*April 19th, 1990*

_// They say that there are some things out there that are so horrifying that the human brain tries to protect itself by refusing to process what the eyes are seeing.  It’s true.  Tony stands there trying to understand the bits that he can. There are splinters of pale wood; shards of pine stick out from the center in a pattern that is almost familiar.  But he just can’t put the images into a whole._

_“Can we get it fixed?”_

_Whirling around his eyes fix on Clint.  Tony can feel his mouth working, trying and failings to spit the words out. Then he blinks.  He’s seen Clint injured and seen him roughed up.  This was…something else. His shaggy dark blond hair was disheveled, standing up to spike points in places.  There are bruises darkening just at the edge of his collar and others are coloring at his shoulders._

_Not handprints, I am not seeing handprints._

_Then Tony sighed.  “It would be easier just to get a new one.”_

_“But it’s our table.”//_

“Master Anthony?” 

That voice tugged at him, pulled him back. The sharp stab of light was the reflection off a high gloss.  A rich oak mocked him when he searched for the butcher block pine.  This wasn’t right.  This table was pristine. it wasn’t beaten and battered.  It hadn’t been repaired multiple times.  You couldn’t run your hands down the surface and read the stories it. 

It was perfect, glossy, sterile –

“Sir!”

Tony’s head snapped up.  He blinked a few times seeing Jarvis walking up to him.

“Are you all right Master Anthony?”

Taking a deep breath Tony pulled his scattered thoughts from their roaming and gave the older man a smile.  “Just thinking.” He said smiling a little.

This, this was why it was worth it.  Seeing this man, here and now helped the pain and the uncertainty.  Watching the tall thin man move, listening to him speak.  Tony couldn’t get enough. 

The day after Stane’s visit, Buchanan had surprised him. To him it was just another day and one he had been prepared to fake his way through the exercises griping and groaning, but Buchanan just smiled that mischievous smirk and tossed him jeans and t-shirt instead of sweats.  He hadn’t clued in either when she gave him a stack of papers and files. It had only been when the wheelchair had headed the wrong way for physical therapy that he had clued in.

And the evil wench had just laughed.  It hadn’t been mocking, not pitying, when his eyes had welled with tears seeing the tall thin man waiting for him.  It had been joy, sheer joy in her voice.  And Tony had held tight to his old friend and soaked it in.

 “Deep thoughts sir?” Jarvis turned back to setting the table.  Tony wasn’t fooled.  His eyes maybe looking at the china, glasses and silverware but Tony would bet anything that the man’s entire focus was him.

And Tony couldn’t blame him.  He had been acting a little strange, a little out of character.  He had haunted Anna’s kitchen until she had chased him out.  Tony had tried to settle into his room, to play the distant son and spoiled heir.  But he just couldn’t and had left after a few minutes seeking something.

He dug his fingers into the edges of the supports on his wrists.  The elastic rubbed on the tender flesh and the padding held the sweat in.  He had several ideas to improve them.  Maybe even tuck a few surprises in.  If he had to wear them anyways they might as well do something.

 Jarvis laid out a fourth settling and Tony gritted his teeth.

“Obie is coming?” He kept the emotion out of his voice. 

“Mr. Stane will be joining your parents for dinner. “ The response held just as much, or as little emotion.

Everything polished everything expensive and exquisite.  This table had never seen take out, or pizza boxes.  This table had never held dishes that no one cared if they broke, and no plastic ever set foot on it.

“Does he do that often?”

“Mr. Stane usually joins your Father for dinner if Mister Stark is dining at home.”

Interesting.  “And Mother?”

“Ms. Stark is uncertain if she will be joining you for dinner.  I remain hopeful. “

“Let her know I will if she will.”

Jarvis nodded a slight smile flickering across his feature.  “I will let her know.”

~*~

His mother’s seat remained empty.  Scowling at it made him feel better.  She had managed to come down for appetizers and pre-dinner small talk.  But by the time dinner was called she had plead a headache and returned to her rooms.

He couldn’t say a word.  Just promised he would see her in the morning.  He hadn’t been home much and it made him sick to see this little slice of domestic hell.  It wasn’t overt.  No the snide remarks, the cutting body language from Stane alone made the anger simmer more.   And his father wasn’t much better.   But that was neglect and obliviousness. 

 Tony took another sip trying to keep his expression to the same neutral oblivious lines.  They churned in his stomach instead, twisting and rolling, taking all the enjoyment out the food in front of him.

Anyone who could look back at their childhood memories with something approaching affection or nostalgia he envied.  Maybe they were deluded or maybe it was possible that there were people out there who emerged from the family home whole and hale.

To keep himself entertained he started redesigning the bracers in his head.  Some of his attention was still focused on the other end of the table.  It kept him distracted enough to not storm down the other end of the table.

Same old, same old, costs were up, again, and profits low.  There was plenty of money on the books, but the liquid assets were not as high as the board would like.   Hiding snort in his glass he rolled his eyes.  Same song and dance Obie complained of when he had first taken the reigns.  Just add a diminishing market…his eyes narrowed as he tried to remember.

Military contracts had started getting tighter in the 90s shortly before he had taken over.  They wanted weapons yes, but not at the cost. Then it was the unpaid upgrades.  The recession that followed hadn’t helped either.   Weapons of all types meant money, but with the restrictions on what you could sell on the civilian market the military had been their biggest customer.  So they had bought and bought while payment has slowed.

It wasn’t all military.  His father knew better.  SI had started small in the civilian market with smaller handguns and some electronics.  But it hadn’t been until Tony had taken over at 21 that SI really expanded into the civilian side. 

It had been one of his an Obie’s more vicious fights.  Tony wanted more diversity, wanted to strengthen their civilian markets, while Stane had just wanted more weapons. 

Now he just wanted and studied both men.  Stane was a master at body language.  His subtle cues and gestures gently coax his target to the desired direction.  The way he shifts his broad shoulders and leans in just a enough to add emphasis.  Tony doesn’t miss the way that Stane keeps refilling his father’s glass and makes a show of adding more to his own barely touched glass.

_/”Slow and steady.”  Natasha tossed her hair back. “Go too fast and if you are lucky all you lose is your chance.  If you are not so lucky you lose your life.”/_

 He has to fight down the wave of self-disgust, but is it really the fault of a young man.  Was it pride in thinking that the young man he’d been had so experienced with manipulation that he could recognize it in all its forms? 

He watched the way the Obie talked and gestured and his father’s acceptance and nods.  Could he really do this? 

 “What do you think?”

That derisive tone makes the hackles rise, but Tony stamps down the gut response.   Hadn’t he set up his own body language to read that he wasn’t paying that much attention?   Nimble fingers shredded the roll weighing the risks.  Fuck it. Sometimes you have to run before you can walk. 

“Depends on how much of an increase in margins you are looking for?” Tony responded without hesitation.  

A flash of surprise crossed the older Stark’s face.  His eyes narrowed at the bland tone and fast response. “10%.” 

Tony snorted. “With the current portfolio SI has?  You be lucky to get 3.”

He doesn’t give two fuck at this point.  He’s tired and his head is starting to throb.  “You may want to start looking at alternatives.  The weapons market is easy, but it’s stagnating.  The government doesn’t have the budget to invest like they used to.  Five years down the road they will be clamoring for more with only the promises of payment. “

It may look like he’s staring down into his glass, but he aware of every shift and twitch.  He can see Stane’s expression slip and curl into a blatant dismissal and disregard then softening and shifting until it is softer and less angry. 

His father though, the lines were curious almost intrigued despite himself.   “What type of diversification?”  Howard shifted looking at Tony his expression more like he was talking to another businessman not his teenaged son.

“Defense systems, armor, communications. “ Tony shrugged making it sound like ideas he just threw out not the product of almost 20 years of SI success.  “Hell, look at non-lethal weapons.  There you have not only the law enforcement markets, but also the civilian self-defense market. “

“Recession Tony.” Obie chided. “You can’t seriously expect SI to be able to make that kind of change.”

“Start slow then.”  He tossed back, the same tone that had teased reporters and challenged board members.  “But,” he flicked a piece of dust off the rim of his glass. “If SI can’t be nimble, have its fingers in a lot of pies where will we be in five year?”

“And you have a business degree now?”  Stane scoffs and Tony almost smiles at the way he tried to lace it with the derision, but also failing to hide that shred of anger.  There is something here, something more than just a hypothetical topic.

“No but did you really expect that growing up listening to you and Dad I wouldn’t pick it up? “  A little flattery that was mostly true.  Even at school he’d found every article, every contract.  “How many times have you both said that I need to pay attention? “

His father looked…surprised.  “So defensive capabilities?”

“Some fight with a sword, some with a shield.”  The old response to why SI doesn’t need to make bombs slips out before he could think. 

It hurts to see the flash of old grief and pain in his father’s eyes.  Tony wants to ask, wants to know why it hurts that much.  But Tony too had stood shoulder to shoulder with not just Captain America but with the kid from Brooklyn, so maybe it’s not so hard to get.

It does something to Tony when his father waves him down to his side of the table.  “Show me?”

Jesus, how many times would have killed to have his father say those words to him before.  Show me, the invitation Howard would only give to another adult, to another engineer. 

He immersed in without thought.  When paper and pencils replace plates and forks neither pause.  They are sketching and talking.  They are not father and son here just too inventors and business men working through concepts and designs. 

Jarvis removed their plates leaving paper and pencils for the two Starks to bounce ideas off of.

They only surface to the smell of dark chocolate being placed in the center of the table.   When Stane makes the rounds to fill Tony’s glass he moves it out of the way.

“I’m going to have coffee thanks.”

“Oh?  Is this some new doctor recommendation?”

Tony just leans back a look of mock indignation. “Red wine goes with red meat.  For Anna’s Chocolate cake anything other than coffee is a sacrilege.”

“Anna made her chocolate cake?” Howard looks up at the cake and his lips twitch up into a smile of his own. 

“Yep.”  Tony plans on having many, many pieces

“Jarvis, can you get me a cup of coffee please.”

Watching the way the elder Stark gestures with his fork, the way his sips at his coffee and studies the pencil sketches there is a feeling sparking in Tony’s chest.  His first reaction is fear that burning warm scares him.   It has betrayed him countless times before and the urge to trust it one more time scares the hell out of him.

~*~

It’s the nights that get to him.  Tony can’t sleep, not well.  He could be dropping with exhaustion and tumble into bed, but three or four hours later he’s up.  Some nights its dreams the ones where he’s still home, the tower is full of people.  Other times it’s nightmares, Obie, Ultron, even the war.  The worst are the nights were he just can’t sleep.  He will stare at ceiling for hours while thousands of thoughts and ideas rampage through his brain. 

He’s beginning to wish for nightmares.

It’s always been a thing.  It’s only when he’s totally focused on a subject that he can still the thoughts down to one concept, one idea.  But there is no workshop here.  The only lab is Howard’s and god forbid he go there.

Alcohol that once worked and it’s tempting.  God, how tempting to find a bottle and pour glass after glass until he can’t think anymore, until he can’t feel.

_//_

_His hand clenches air.  He has to tilt down to look.  There is no glass in his hand.  There was a glass there and a bottle had been next to it.  They’re gone.  When did they leave?_

_He hears the swish of bare feet before her words hit him._

_“Does getting blind drunk really help?”_

_“You’re coddling me.” He accuses his words slurring only a little. She’s the assassin. Death and shadows in human form, he shouldn’t have heard her.  He never hears her.  She just pops into existence._

_Deceptive fingers grip his chin Strong fingers grip his chin and turn his face to hers. “Does drinking help?”_

_He’s forced to look.  Those green eyes are not as blank as he was expecting. He can’t quite figure out what he’s seeing, not pity, not disgust._

_Not the normal things he sees, a slight hiccup, saw in Pepper’s eyes._

_She doesn’t say anything just looks at him, not through him, not exasperated.  What does she want?_

_“No.”  He breathes out.  The confusion turns to surprise when she sits down next to him.  When she shifts he lists down to lean against her it become confusion again.  And he breaks a little at the warmth and the comfort._

_“Then why do you keep doing it?” Gentle fingers card through his hair.  It feels so good that touch.  He leans down into it not realizing the shift until his head is in her lap.  He can’t think about how long it’s been since someone touched him like this.  How long it’s just been about comfort, affection._

_“What else can I do?” He manages before he passes out._

_//_

Giving it up as hopeless Tony crawls out of bed.  Dressing in the dark isn’t an issue, there is enough light from the windows that he won’t trip over things.  One more month and he will be eighteen.  He can go back to school, live in the apartment just one more month.

Everything is silent here. In the darkness it’s too tempting to give to just pretend that it’s the tower.  To think that Natasha is stalking the halls, that someone is in the gym…

But he can’t. He can’t give in to that, can’t use it as a crutch.  He needs to focus; to keep moving.  But the phantoms run through his mind.  How the mansion could be converted, how strong the vents are. 

No alcohol, no building. 

He’s already been through anything and everything in the room that he could modify or fix.  Nothing from the alarm clock to the computer has been left untouched. Even the furniture, he smiles a little.  It’s funny in away. Everyone has always focused on the genius aspects, how great it must be to be that smart.  Running his fingers through his hair he resists the urge to pull. Focus, he needs a focus.

Some subject important or trivial doesn’t matter, just something to pour all the thoughts into, to escape into.

The first time, the first time he’d managed it had been his parent’s funeral. 

// _White walls, his eyes blinked, still white walls. The sunlight bouncing off them was making his eye water._

_“I’ll take care of things at SI.”  Obie said, putting a firm hand on his shoulder.  “Don’t worry about it.”_

_He doesn’t respond, doesn’t bother and soon the footsteps fade away.  Now the only echo in the house was the clock.  Its relentless ticking the only company he had. It drew him in, the fight of gears and gravity with each second until he was lost in the rhythm._

_His eyes drifted shut._

_He woke again in the dark and quiet.  Stumbling he pulled himself to the kitchen.  Covered trays and mysterious things stared at him in the refrigerator.  His stomach churned._

_The bottle cold in his hand he shuffled to the couch.  Flipping on the tv he wanted something, anything to drown up the emptiness._

_‘reconstruction is a process carried out with the specific purpose of estimating in both a qualitative and quantitative manner how a crash occurred’_

_He focused on the television his attention caught but the narrator’s words._

_‘Specific crash segments, classified as pre-impact, impact and post-impact motion often are reconstructed separately. Each of the segments is analyzed using established engineering, scientific and mathematical principles and based on the physical evidence.’//_

It has saved him.  Loosing himself in all the aspects from theories to practice on accident reconstruction. For days all he did was read anything and everything about accident reconstruction, about the physics, meteorology, biology.  Every piece had been absorbed, analyzed and understood.  Three days of pouring over books, articles, news clipping until greed and gluttony had been satiated. 

There had been no room in that drive for anything but the subject.  Everything and anything he could get his hands on until he had collapsed with exhaustion.

It hadn’t been perfect, hadn’t cured him from the recriminations from the fact that they were gone.  But it had kept him from succumbing.

When things got too bad he still would reach for a body or a bottle.  A different kind of bad had him pulling out the notebook.  Bitter irony, that he had a little notebook too,  full of subjects and ideas, things that would take him time to figure out and prefect.

Some were silly things, cooking.  Most people thought he couldn’t cook.  Some things like omelets Tony though was more about psychology than education.  The rest, well why should he. He could though and spent one marvelous month learning about cuisine from all over the world.  With the number of times he had found himself having no one to rely on but himself, cooking was a necessity.  Everyone always pointed to the times he’d lock himself in the workshop, drinking smoothies and forgetting that solid food existed.  His choice or rather disregard of things like hunger and time. 

Woodworking he ran his hand over the desk he sat at with a smile.  It was on that border between silliness and useful.  Right now it was damn useful. He opened the bottom two drawers and then the top. Running his hands over the bottom he found the catch that slide back.  Nestled in the bottom were three notebooks.

Another fun one had been on the few that he had actually asked for help one. The spy twins had been so surprised when he had asked them for anything on surveillance and counter surveillance.  By why should he go to books when he had two experts living the same space.  So they had walked him through the tricks of the trade and some of the not so trade.  Tony had only resorted to books when they had the practice but not the reasoning behind it. 

It came in handy too, when he setting up little tells.  Each one had been tripped starting the first day at the mansion. Someone was searching his room.  And they had been sloppy about it.  Some things hadn’t been put back the same way, others had been shifted.  Romanov would have been so disappointed.  There were no camera in here, he had no way of knowing who was doing it.  The actual person searching the room wasn’t important.  Who had hired them and what they were looking for that was.   He could guess though.  Hidden among the release papers that Lydia had given him had been every piece of his file.  Every paper and every photo tucked into it.  There was a high probability that they were looking for that.

Good luck with that.  He thought smirking at the fireplace.  The artistically arranged fireplace thank you, from the scraps of a manila folder to the charred slivers of photograph paper Tony wondered how long it would take them to get the hint.   

There was one thing though that he had never mentioned, never hinted at, and certainly never used.  It was one last trick should he need absolute secrecy in unfriendly hands. Tony Stark had been known for many things from engineering to computers. His encryptions had been unparalleled while his hacking had been unstoppable. The moonlight glinted off his toothy smile, but these were some of his best work.

ENGIMA has been a bedtime story in his house.  The men that had been involved cracking it rotating in and out of this house when he was a small child.  The Voynich Manuscript and the writings of John Dee he had stumbled on as a tangent to another project. As a student at MIT he had even gotten access to the Time Lock puzzle. After Ultron this had been the project to save his sanity.  All the world’s greatest encryptions, their ideation and theories; he studied them all like he would sift through computer code seeing learning and absorbing.

He had never shared it.  None of his old encryptions had gone near it.  Nothing in his conversations or communications had hinted that this interest of his ever existed.

Not that it mattered in this now. 

It could be broken, and probably would be eventually.  But without the key and without assistance on the JARVIS level?  It would take decades.  And that was just for one.  He had seven already done.

One of the biggest problems Tony foresaw was that he’d miss something or forget.  He needed away to compensate.  Jarvis, well, Jarvis was getting there.  He needed more time and quiet to finish the algorithms. For now though, he needed to get it all out. Everything, every detail from people, and things to the flow and development had to be written down.  No interpretations, no justifications cold hard facts.  All the details, all the memories, his plans and dirty secrets had been given life in these pages.  Night after night he would add to the list of people and places. Tony noted down the flow of things that matched and the pieces that hadn’t.  Plans were considered, amended and revised.  Even Dr. Buchanan’s files had been transcribed.

 Once JARVIS was complete Tony would incorporate them into the AI codes and all. 

Let whoever it was search these rooms. Finding the notebooks wouldn’t do them any good. 

A sliver of doubt and anger burned at him.  The memory of hopelessness and frustration ad he put pen to paper. 

_//_

_“This is the key to the future. I'm limited by the technology of my time, but one day you'll figure this out. And when you do, you will change the world. What is, and always will be, my greatest creation... is *you*._

// 


	5. Chapter 4: May your love never end and if you need a friend,

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peggy Carter had watched Tony, observed Tony throughout his life. This Tony was...different.
> 
> And other pieces of the puzzle come to light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Just a change of perspective to get a glimpse of the other side.  
> Chapter Title - I forgot it last time. Roads Untraveled  
> Linkin Park

# Chapter 4

*April 22, 1990*

 

He still had the same swagger, she noted as he walked towards her.  He still stopped to chat up the girls.  The way his head tilted and the sly little smirk, that was the same too.  She could see where his eyes, or at least the sunglasses focused on them and nothing else. 

But Peggy Carter knew better than to take things at face value, especially one Anthony Edward Stark.  Most people would, young and rich they don’t ever think that there could be more to the playboy.  They don’t think about the past.  That he made his first circuit board and engine before he hit double digits.  They don’t think because he won’t let them. 

Tony has always had a talent for manipulation.  Throw in front of cameras and press from the day he was born, it was either sink or swim.  And trust a Stark to never do things by halves.  She’s seen him play others, especially the press.  He’ll do it when it was important, or sometimes when he bothered to notice the flash of lights and the shouted questions. 

She can see it because she’s been there since almost the beginning.  She held the tiny too thin infant when he was just days old.  She’s been asked countless times why she bothers.  She has a family of her own, why does she bother with a spoiled little rich boy for a godson. 

She never answered, never will out loud.  She won’t ever admit that it was guilt…and love. She was not able to stop Howard from drinking too much and being more married to his work and a wife and son.  Love had been at first sight of the sprite with his riot of dark curls and dark velvet eyes. Those eyes had looked at her with such excitement and such hope, a three year old darling with some creation in his hands that it had been a foregone conclusion. 

There times when all she had only managed a brief visit here and there. But there were always the letters and the phone calls. When Howard had shipped Tony off to boarding school she had been the first to take him out to lunch, to have him visit over the summers.  When he had graduated it had been Maria and her, not Howard that had cheered. 

Having Tony alone at college at the ripe old age of fourteen hadn’t pleased her, but now it’s crying over spilled milk.  Tony was graduating not only with a Master’s degree.   Last time they had talked the boy had been full of plans get a few more and maybe even Ph.D or two.  Looking at the young man coming her way, she wasn’t sure what the plans were now.

How much of it had been hubris, to think herself the expert in Tony Stark.  She hadn’t thought she could be shocked not after surviving the stories and evidence of his drinking and other …activities, but this, this might just do it.

His mistake was taking off the sunglasses.  Had he left them on she might have dismissed it as a fluke and a trick of an old mind.  That maybe she was just imposing old memories and older fears onto the boy.

But Tony never did that, no matter why he had them, he always took them off around her.  He trusted her, love her and her heart bled that she could see the truth.

She could see it clearly now.  This wasn't flirting, or just flirting. That slight angle of the head, the way that he got close enough to be just that shade of intimate, but never close enough he couldn’t see the grab coming.  She noted the way he kept on eye on the girl until was too far to surprise him.  Those tricks were not for boys more interested in labs and computers.  Not that smoothly or effortlessly.  Those were the things she expected of senior agents, not seventeen year old kids.

With that camouflage gone she could see it clearly, his eyes never really stopped moving.    The flickered from place to place pausing for sparse seconds as he calculated, measured and assessed.  This wasn’t engineering at all; no this was all about potential threats and sight lines.

Pieces of her familiar Tony still lived on the surface.  He still moved with that cocky gate, but his hands were tucked in the jacket and his stride just a little shorter and softer with boots instead of his sneakers.  She bet the hands were tucked in to hide the supports and the boots to disguise the bandages. 

From the moment Peggy had heard about the kidnapping she had thrown every bit of her reputation into being kept in the loop. She had been there for every update and every discussion.  She had been the one to comfort Maria when the days had passed.  Peggy had even pulled Howard out the meetings to give him the information that he had said he didn’t want, but she knew he needed.

Two weeks to find him. 

The initial reports from Coulson had been bad enough.  That first report from Dr Buchanan first report had been worse.   It wasn’t the details themselves that had bothered her enough to make her do something she hadn’t done since the war.  It was what the doctor hadn’t said that made the words of the old prayers tumble from her lips.  While Aunt Peggy hadn’t been completely happy with Dr. Buchanan’s decision to be the sole doctor, Retired Director Carter had seen the need for it.

She had managed only a few visits when the boy was still unconscious.  Dealing with the clean up and chasing down leads had left her unable to return.  The new Director seemed to think it was some sort of revenge or slight to make her do it.   Let him be petty, Carter wasn’t bothered by it at all. 

But she thought there would be more time.  Time to go see him and then Maria had surprised her with a call.  Tony was home.  She hadn’t had time to really digest it before the young man himself was calling to see if he could visit.

She wasn’t going to say no.  But doubts flood her.  It was too soon, with the wounds listed in those reports he couldn’t have been able to get out.  Dr. Buchanan should have kept him in longer and damn the brat.

Now Peggy was struck by the sight of him moving towards her.  Here he was with just the supports on his hands, and ankles she suspected, with not a hitch or interruption to his stride.

There was no doubt the two weeks had changed him. It wasn’t just the physical changes either.  Yes his body had slimmed down losing the last of what little baby roundness that boy had ever possessed.  His face was sharp features and lean lines.   With no one to impress, or fool, Tony dropped the flamboyant motions and gestures.  He carried an economy of motion and a grace that seemed so at odds with his age.

She did grin, a little when she noted the facial hair he was _trying_ to grow.  But that was the only thing she had to smile about.  These weren’t new changes that he just decided to try on, no the motions seemed little to instinctive, habitual.  This was bone deep knowledge of the kind of things that she had never wanted him to face.

Two weeks, he had only been gone two week, but even Agent Carter knew what could happen in two days much less two weeks.  She was intimately aware just how easily it could break someone.

The mask wasn’t perfect.  The eyes were the weak point.  Part of her was glad that this hadn’t changed that she still could see _him_ in those eyes.  

And she mourned.

Those whiskey colored eyes held the pain and experience that had broken some men and driven others. She’d seen that haunted darkness.  She’d see the boys come back from war old men in a young man’s body.  She’d seen them struggle with that darkness. Howard had sunk into a bottle, consumed with work and alcohol he had tried to forget.  Steve and she wanted to weep over it still, had lost himself in the image, had killed himself in the name of saving others.

Those were not things she should be seeing in the eyes of a seventeen year old, not this seventeen year old at least. 

 “Hello Gorgeous.”  Tony leaned down to kiss her cheek.  A hint of stubble at his jaw line rubbed against her skin, but she only smelled a trace of cologne and maybe engine grease.  Nothing on his breath but coffee and she held his wrist in gentle hands.

Yes there were supports on his arms, the removable ones in black to blend in with his shirt.   He smiled at her when she touched them with a gentle hand and never pulled away.  He only caressed the back of her hand with his free one before sitting down next to her.

He looked better this close.  Gone was the ashen tone to his complexion.  The olive tint to his skin would better conceal any lingering paleness. 

 “You are too handsome for you own good young man.” She smiled. 

His grin broadened into a smile and he laughed.  “I bet you say that to all the boys.”

It was so free and open that she had to cover her surprise. 

“Are you okay?”  His expression shifted to open concern and she looked up at him with a slight smile.

“Hazards of getting old, Tony.”

“You’ll always be beautiful to me.” It wasn’t the practice tones of a flirt, and the sincerity in them pulled at her.

“How are you feeling?” She asks the obvious and expected.

The slight burble of laughter is reward enough.  “I’m not hung over.” He mocks protests like it was an expected thing.

“I never thought you were.” She chided with a soft rapt to his cheek.  “I had been expecting you to be at least another week in the hospital and considering your injuries on enough pain killers to keep you in bed.”

He smiled but it wasn’t real.  “I’m stiff and sore. I didn’t drive, Jarvis insisted.”

She caught a brief glimpse of the other man as Tony had entered, but she had been so focused on the boy that the old friend hadn’t really registered.

“And Lydia sprang me for good behavior.” The smirk was pure Tony and a little of the tension in her chest relaxed.

“Lydia is it?”  She teased giving him a knowing smile. He was a flirt, once the bumbling attempts had been entertaining to watch; now she wondered just how good he was.   

The tea tray and Amy interrupt their little moment. Peggy got to witness the transformation.  It’s almost too smooth to catch, and he’s talking and getting the young woman to laugh.   Peggy has seen experienced agents with less skill or subtly.  Part of her really wants to know who taught him.  There are little things he does that make her think of someone else, but the gestures and postures just off enough that she can’t put a definitive name to the style.

And he’s pulling it off.  For all that she once thought the boy didn’t have the temperament for subtly, but he’s the king of misdirection. 

When the younger woman leaves his eyes still followed her out the door, but then he’s all her boy again.  Tony laughs at her comments and pours her tea adding just the right amount of cream and the touch of sugar she likes.  Considering how long ago it was that they had tea, proper tea, last that he remembered is touching.

 “Dr. Buchanan was the soul or kindness and courtesy.”  The bland tone and twinkling eyes mock each other as he measure out the sugar and cream to her liking.

“Really?” It’s a game this deadpan exchange, playful and fun.  “Did she threaten to sedate you and tie you to the bed?”

She winces when the words just flow teasing like she would have once teased her friends. 

But Tony just laughs taking a cup for himself.  “No, she threatened my coffee.”

It’s said with such a mournful expression that Peggy can’t help but laugh. And the conversation turns to less fraught topics.

“I hear that you are taking over the house upstate?” she hides her curiosity in another sip.

Such a dramatic sigh. “Mother called you?”

“And your father.”

That gets a raised eyebrow.  “To answer the question, yes.  I’m reopening the old brownstone upstate. “

“Why?”

He moves to the wrought iron chair across from her.  “Because I want my own space.  I’m done with my first Ph.D and I want time to see what I want to do.”

It’s honest and truthful, but not the full truth.  She let it go for now. 

“You graduated with your bachelor’s last year Tony.  And now you have your Ph.D?”

The eye roll is new.  “Yes and I have enough materials to probably pull another two maybe three, but that’s not the point.”

“What’s the point Tony?”

“The point is I need my own space.”  He’s up and pacing the small space.  “I want a place where I can work.  I need a place I can think.”

There are layer under those words that she’s not sure she wants to parse.  “Tony.”  She says soothing the boy.  “I can understand that.  The concern is security and no offense, your health.”

“Why does everyone assume I can’t take care of myself?” 

The whine is pitch-perfect.

“Because you haven’t been able to yet.”  She says bluntly hoping to head this off at the pass.

He sinks back down into a chair with devil may care smile that she’s beginning to hate. It’s too old and too cynical for him.

“Point.” He says and there is calculation now.  “So, “he leans forward, “if I get a household staff and security you will talk to Maria and Howard?”

Not mom and dad, or even mother and father, but then he’s hasn’t called them that since he’d been shipped to boarding school.

“I will talk to them Tony.”  She promised and does not add, among others.

~*~

Peggy wasn’t surprised at how easy it was, just a few phone calls.  First she called the hospital.  They are full of regrets and apologies.  All request and inquiries about Mr. Stark’s treatment need to go to Dr. Buchanan.  She can hear the ruffled feathers in the way they insinuate that it was too early for his release.  It was in the way at the administrators won’t give any information Peggy knows they are trying to dodge any responsibility.  A few more minutes and few not so idle threats and she had a phone number and an intense desire to take a good look at whose been asking questions and making waves.

The latter was shifted to Fury, as assistant director to her replacement he’s the perfect person really.  For the former all Peggy can do was leave a message with the answering service.

An hour after Tony leaves Lydia Buchanan is asking for permission to visit. And she’s not alone.  A man and a woman pay their respects, but one stands at the door and the other looking out the windows, bodyguards.  Peggy ignored the youth, it’s deceiving, and sees the competence in the way they both move and watch.  She sees the training in the way they assess the room.  There is affection there too, in the softness of their eyes when they watch Lydia.

“Eilian Rayne and Ethan Donovan.”  Lydia introduces them with an irritated huff.  Both give her a polite nod, but don’t move from their positions. 

It’s not subtle, it’s in your face and unapologetic, a warning as well as a security measure.  And using that obvious youth, a dare.

Peggy sighs starting to see the shape of the game at play.  

 “How many?”  She’s not wasting time.

“Nothing serious-“ Lydia tries to wave off the question, but is interrupted by her “guards”.

“Two concerted attempts.” The other woman corrected.  She’s sleek and slender in the way of whipcord lean muscle.  “Not impressed.”  The long braid of pale blond hair is tossed over her back with a measure of disdain.

“Three minor.” The black haired man added quietly and his blue eyes dark and serious.

Lydia just looked annoyed and frustrated.

“I was expecting Dr. Blake to take over Tony’s treatment. “  It’s a bit of a reprieve and Lydia latched on to it.

“I was on the trauma team that pulled Mr. Stark out.” She paused and her eyes darken a little.  “And after we did the initial assessment I decided that it would be best to keep the medical team small.”

“You decided?”

The look became steel.  “I decided.  I did confer with Dr. Blake and he agreed that with Mr. Stark’s injuries and his condition that having one primary doctor would be best.”

Peggy could hear the host of words not said.  Lydia’s companions didn’t respond. 

“What were his injuries?”

“You’d have to ask Mr. Stark that.”  Prim, proper and not moving.

“And his mental condition?”

“You’d have to ask Mr. Stark that.” 

“Where are his files and documentation?”

She smiled a sharp smile.  “You’d have to ask Mr. Stark that.”

All the pieces fell together.   She was young, but no younger than one Agent Carter has been once upon a time.  Her compatriots had that same feel.  The other woman with her pale blond hair looked to be young so very young and the man even with her experience couldn’t place an age.  They dressed like college students these days jeans and t shirts with hoodies and flannel shirts.  But Peggy would bet that both were armed to the teeth. 

“So you think they will go for you rather than Tony?”

The blond rolled her eyes, but the doctor just stilled the girl’s protest with a calm hand gesture.  “I expect them too.”

“You are expecting them to?” Peggy could see the shape of the plan now.   The others were smooth skin and rough edges.  Too many people would be taken in by that, no company or agency would have hired them.  She could see it in their eyes, but you had to look.  These were friends from their body language, very good friends and no one would ever think of bodyguards.  When they didn’t need to worry about who was watching Peggy could see an almost Military like baring in the man, the girl’s was something different something that made her wish that she still was recruiting for SHIELD. 

“I think someone will.  Either to continue what was tried or because Mr. Stark is...who he is.”

Peggy nodded and looked them over.  There was a lot to discuss and figure out just how to convince a boy certain of his own invulnerability that he needed the help.

It’s impressive and insane. “You set yourself up to be the easier target.  No real guards, no offense.” They both give her toothy smiles. “And you put yourself out to be easy to locate and I’m better tempting to grab.”

Lydia slowly nods her hazel eyes unapologetic.

“Why?”

The doctor takes a moment. Peggy can see the way she gathers her arguments, and discard some.

“I’m the distraction.” She admitted finally.  “Let them come after me we can find out more about who took him or who is trying to.”  There is a spark in those eyes now, burning brightly.  “He’s stumbling looking for a place to plant his feet and regain his balance.”

Truth, but not all the truth.  Peggy once worked with Lydia’s grandmother and the older woman had had her own moments of oddity. 

“But why you SHIELD could assign someone.”

 The doctor nods.  “You could and people would notice you watching.  They would wonder what makes Tony Stark so interesting that SHIELD and not the local police were assigned to his protection.”

“Howard was SHIELD too.”

That got another Gaelic shrug.  “No one bothered the last four times he was kidnapped.”  There is no accusation in her tone just bald fact and that is more damning. But Peggy can see the protectiveness; Lydia always did have a soft spot for a type.  And Tony had hit the younger woman’s buttons.

“Howard wouldn’t let us.”

“Find people that can blend in, that don’t scream SHIELD agent every time they open their mouths. “

“Acceptable, but that won’t solve the issue. You are still going to be target.  They will see the Doctor part and not look past the soft tempting target.

The feral smiles gleamed all around.

“I really hope they do.” Lydia said with the sharpest smile of them all.

~*~

//   // = memories

#/  /# = hallucinations

*Date unknown*

 

He was just the asset. All he knew was the cold space with brief periods of waking and sunlight.  The burn of the machines and then back into the cold.

Another mission, another brief moment of warmth paid for by blood.  A name and location, he never was told the why, tools didn’t need to know. 

Pull the trigger and complete the task, thanks in pain and cold.

Time passed, seasons shifted, but it was all the same blankness.

Until it wasn’t.

Wave after wave of noise, voices, music, sounds, screams overlapping with images, touches caresses.  It’s hours and seconds.  Building and rending down. Over and over.

He had been trained into stillness and obedience.  His body told no tales, no signs of the riots of sounds and sights thundering through his head. He’s maintained through gunshot wounds, he was trained to ignore pain so keeping unconsciousness at bay from the betrayal of his own mind was a simple thing.

//

_The air was heavy with cigarette smoke, there is no reason to light one up himself.  The contact alone gets the buzz of nicotine flowing just as well with the beer in his hand._

_He can see the rest of them through the glass.  Idiots, every single one of them jumping on board with the biggest idiot of all._

_“See? I told you.”  He just can’t stand it sometimes seeing Stevie like that.  But that smile is the same.   The formals stretched out over muscles and even worse what that he had to look up now.  Blessing and a curse.  Tall, strong, and health yes thank God, but in the army in the midst of the war._

_He smiles because he has too.  They’re all idiot.”  He drank another long pull of the bottle and couldn’t say if it was in celebration or to drown the pain._

_When Steve sits next to him, it’s all he could do to focus on the glass to ignore the way his heart is pounding and the worries knotting in his stomach._

_“How about you?” The man won’t look at him, but then he can’t look at Steve either.  “You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?”_

_He snorts, it’s a stupid, stupid question. He can hear the sarcasm lacing Steve’s every word._

_“Hell, no.” he said with a smirk. “That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight. “  He has to look to see if Steve gets it, does he understand.  “I’m following him.”_

//

_Mission parameters and dormant thoughts collide.  The Mission, kills him battles with Stevie.  That flop of blond hair gleamed in the sunlight._

_Something that tears at his mind and pulls at memories burned into forgetfulness._

_“Bucky?”_

_“Who the Hell is Bucky?”_

//

_The road is still and quiet.  Few cars are out this late and he has no issue pacing his target.  The sleek lines of the car scream wealth and the three faces inside are unconcerned._

_It’s one shot to set off the chain reaction.  One glance to confirm.  The drive is dead on impact.  A snap of her neck and the woman is gone.  The man was bleeding from the shard of glass imbedded in his chest.  He’s a dead man walking already.  One shove and it will piece his heart._

_But that face, the lines and the moustache.  The hair is white, and he old too old.  But the asset only sees a younger fresher face the cocky curl of a smirk._

_There is horror in the man’s eyes and the asset shoves the glass in._

//

Hundreds more coat his past in crimson.  The deaths, the cold, a skinny blond kid with determined blue eyes.  The red head with the sultry smile even she sleeps.  The feel of her soft skin and knowing lips.  Pain in blue eyes while shoulder square and a flash of red, white and blue.

It all that had been missing and more.

The feel of metal tearing under his hands.  The slap of a shield coming to rest in his waiting hands.  The warmth of blood

When it all fades he is still standing, tall and straight.

He pulls back just a little into the sheltering darkness of his position.  He can taste the blood where he had bitten his lip and his head throbs with every step.  The darkness helped, the sharp flares of pain fades out of the light.  It’s all he could do to curl up far where no one will chance upon him and let the darkness take him.

~*~

Night had come when he blinks awake.  His hands went first to his weapons and then to his gear.  There is not much, this was a two day mission and his extraction team will be watching.  He’s already found them, spotted them when he was scoping the target. 

Counting his ammo he’s not worried, the guns will be useful but for this he would prefer being up close and personal.

// _Laughter rings in his ears, but it’s not mocking.  The silver bells sound curls around his heart, and other parts._

 _“Come to bed.” Red hair drapes down barely covering her breasts._ //

Finding the extract team is laughably easy.  Their duty was to get him in and out, too keep the Asset under control.  There is no effort to disguise their presence and they all bunk together in  rented house.

Only one of the seven woke as he prowled.  The babbled of words didn’t touch him, didn’t effect him at all. The fail safes fail and the Soldier just laughed while the man choked on his own blood.  Those words and phrases couldn’t compete were drowned out by the flood in his own mind, the cacophony of static and the wash of blood and gore replaying again and again.

A breath and could force the imaged quiet.  He can focus on the room around him instead of what imaged his eyes wanted him to focus on.  Moving quickly he scavenges anything useful.  Ammo, weapons, money and anything else that might be useful.  But he can’t afford to be notices and with regret sets down the assault weapons.  IDs are plentiful, as he looked at them ideas fountain up on the best ways to modify them for his needs.

_#/ “Get the first aid kit.” The woman with the blood red hair ordered . “You know what you need to do.” /#_

He nods because he does.  Hydra can be many things arrogant and prejudicial among them.  But what they are not is more complicated.  They are not short sighted but they are not stupid.

//

_“Baron,” the high pitched voice is so pleased and it’s all the asset can do to not react as the thin hand pets his hair.  “The surgery was a success.”  The hand strokes the metal arm and his skin shudders._

_“Good.”_

_The voices fade in and out._

_“We have several measures in place.  The fail safes in arm are just the start.”_

//

_#/“You’ll have to get all six Buck.” The blond man crouches down next to him on the floor. “And a short amount of time to do it in.” /#_

His mouth is dry, but his hand didn’t shake when he used a lighter to sterilize the blade of his knife and the needle. 

Spike of pain throb in his head, but he can’t stop, can’t try to puzzle what is wrong.

One, Two and Three are simple and easy.  Thigh, abdomen and neck, they are removed with a slide of the knife over skin and rooted out with the forceps.

_#/“Careful.” The woman warns carding her fingers through his sweat soaked hair./#_

He can distract himself a little from the burning in his skin.  He already has a pile of the electronics and while he’s no Howard it’s not hard to build what he wants. 

_#/“Do you know what you are doing?” the blond, Stevie, its Steve you moron, asks._

_“Yes you jerk I know what I’m doing.”_

_The other man’s eyes crinkle in a way that skinny or big is adorable. /#_

It’s rough and jury rigged to hell and back.  But he doesn’t have a soldering iron and the wire strippers are from a multi-tool.   But it will work. 

_#/“If all the trackers go off line the alert will sound.” /#_

“Good to see you’re learning Natalia.”   If they both don’t shut up, but he just turned back to his work.  The bathroom mirror is small but it is enough to allow him to sink the electrodes in.  He can’t feel the chip.  He knows it there. 

He didn’t flinch when he feels the skin part. The warm blood welled and tricks down cold skin.

_#/“Breathe Barnes.” The voice is soft and soothing.  “Last one bucko.” /#_

He swallows the chuckle at the attempt at humor.  Another flash of pain and worry, if the knife slips too many muscles too many nerves lay in its path. 

_The electricity courses through him sending him to his knees.  There is a copper taste in his mouth where he’d bitten his lip to silence any sound. It’s done. The smell of burning blood and flesh is in the air.  A minute, he just needs a minute to pull it together._

_// Exhaustion is pulling at him.  But footsteps have his jerking back away._

_Steve, it’s just Steve._

_Someone is with him. The Asset assessed the slender man with his lean muscles._

_“Buck?” His eyes shift over when a gentle hand touches his good shoulder. It’s safe to ignore the brunette, he’s not a threat.  “I brought someone.” Steve gestures and the man moves carefully over.  “This is Scott, he’s going to check your arm. “_

_He’s too exhausted to care.  The arm always hurts, but it has functioned.  Now it’s stuck and all his efforts have torn muscles and done something to mechanics themselves. With rapt attention he watches the man work.  Scott, he can remember that, asks him to flex and move.  In response the panels whirl and open._ //

The memory goaded him forcing him up to his feet.  He needs a stable surface for the next part. Seated at the kitchen table he rests the metal on the cleared surface.  Another breath and he thought about that memory.  It’s clearer than the others.  Most things are blurry with an edge or unreality to them.

_#/“It’s the memory wipe.” Natalia leans against the stove.  The red hair drifting around her shoulders in tight curls. “It will get better as the serum works to heal your brain.”_

_“What about the others?” He asks resting his head on the cool metal._

_“They were never wiped.”_

_He gapes at the empty space where she had stood._

_“Not now Buck.” Steve chides. “Focus on the immediate threat.” /#_

He doesn’t want to see the grin on the punks face and instead turns to the arm and the tools.  The list of things he needs is extensive, but what he has are screwdrivers, plyers, that damn multi-tool, knives and forceps.

Time to get to work.

It’s all about flexing the right muscle, triggering the release.  The arm was not a hollow shell.  It was reinforcements, components, wires and circuitry.  Looking at the inside made his stomach roll.  Someone had called it one of the most advanced prosthetics in existence.  He agrees with the one that called it a nightmare.  The trackers here are easy to slide out.  Thin, flat chips slotted into ports at the elbow and shoulder. 

The tricky part is the failsafe.  Should he become compromised, should the asset slip the leash it would set up a set up a feedback loop and trigger every explosive component killing him and anyone in a two block radius.

// _“I’d like to replace the entire thing.” Scott wipes the sweat from his forehead.  There is a jeweler’s monocle over one eye.  “This is a hash work of original design and upgrades.”  The tiny tools in his hands look so odd glinting out of his arm._

_“Can you fix it?” Steve hovers, the bastard always hovered._

_Scott looks up and the light glimmers off the lenses.  “Steve I can’t fix this mess. The balance and heft are wrong. Those bastards grafted it to the remains of his shoulder.  I can even count the ways this is fucked up.“ He took a deep breath.  “There are levels of hell reserved for the people that made this arm.”_

_“What can you do Scott?”_

_“I can relieve some of the pain.  I can fix the mechanical stuff.  But the rest?  Steve I know you don’t want to hear it, but Stark is going to be the one able to deal this fuckery.”_

_Steve sighs and wipes his hand over his face._

_He knows that there is something both men are dancing around.  “Do it.” He growls and they both jump._

_“Buck.” Steve protests._

_He ignores the idiot. “Do what you can.  Hydra...”  He has to pull the fractured memories together.  “Hydra left a fail safe.”_

_He needs to make the man understand._

_“I saw it.” Scott nods gesturing with one probe.  “Whoever designed this didn’t want it to go off by accident.”  The probe slides into where the meat of his upper arm would have been.  “There is a slot here.  Turn it all the way to the left.”_

_“Your left or mine?” It’s the first time he can remember making a joke.”_ //

And it’s done.  

 Check the list, one step at time.  There are no more tethers to him, his head has the only strings left to pull.  No tools will fix that, names skim below where he can pull at them taunting him before vanishing without giving up their secrets. 

All the removed trackers are put in a zip lock bag.  They need to stay together.  One fried isn’t a concern.  They’ve gone down before and if it’s just the one some flunky will record it as one more item for post mission repair.  But if the readings start tracing in different directions that will trigger teams to hunt him down.

So he’ll need a head start.  He looks at the bodies; someone will find them, eventually.  Past missions whisper in his mind.  No contact until the mission was completed.  If contact has not been established 48 hours after the mission parameters then a message.  Should that message fail then a team will be sent 24 hours later.

Seventy two hours, he could be anywhere could be anyone.

#/“James.” She said  /#

He smiled.

Yes.


	6. Chapter 5: When you gonna wake up and fight for yourself? Shinedown “Sound of Madness”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plans seldom survive the first encounter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: There is a bit of violence ahead, just a little and Implied past child abuse. 
> 
> Thank you for all the responses. Not officially beta read so all mistakes are mine. And still don't own the Avengers or Marvel characters.

*May 30, 1990*

It was a curious bit of trivia, something more of a historical curiosity that that original SI office had very few pictures to remember it by.  There might be two or three of the outside of the building, but it was just another brownstone office, one of thousands from its time.  Only the name on the stone gave any clue as to who this one had belong to.  The SI historian had managed to gather a scattered handful from various employees or their relatives.  But nothing existed to give a feel for the inside of the building, to its heart and soul.

Tony didn't even remember it.  Howard certain had never brought him here.  No, his childhood visit had been to the labs and field stations, when the old man had even bothered. 

Seeing it now in all it's glory, rather trapped in the bowels of the hell SI called the Legal Department Tony is quite certain that is was deliberate and a good thing.  He might not be Pepper, or even have St- the Captain’s artistic eye but this was just…bad.

Tony knew beauty, he knew elegance.  He valued comforted. This place failed on every count.  And the atmosphere, was well more depressing that some dungeon cells.  No natural light touched this room.  The warrens of cubes and offices gave him a few minutes of entertainment to try to figure out how long one had to slave away here before they got to see the sun. And it didn't end there.  The heavy dark furniture coupled with darker carpets made everything press in, made it all looming and overbearing.

Like a trap.

He pushed that thought aside, and focused on the second hand of his watch, watching it tick away until the tension left his shoulders and his neck.  

Not a clock either, just another piece of the psychological puzzle, if it was created by a sadist, or a doctor, don’t give the unfortunate person stuck in this hole any idea of just how long the wait really was. 

Did they expect him to be fazed by it?  Did they expect him to give up?  Waiting wasn't something new, it was old.  It was something you did when your father didn't have time for you and your mother bounced between charities and clubs and her husband until she remembered that she did indeed have a child.

Growing up it had been all about power, everyone that couldn't touch his father, couldn't risk it making sure that Tony understood just how powerless and unimportant he really was. Now Tony Stark, billionaire, the only person that had dared to make his wait had been Fury.  It had been a game, a way to remind each other just where the other stood. And themselves too if Tony thought about it. Pepper had done it too, but that was more in the shocked unexpected surprised and not ready for him variety than any sort of punishment.  Even when he had deserved it.

This didn’t really have the power play feel though.  This was something a little different, and not that hard to figure out. He was however just a tab bit disappointed in how the first had had reached for the phone without bothering to wait until he was ushered into the waiting room.

If he was going to be forced to wait, Tony wasn't going to waste the time.  He pulled a few files from his briefcase.  Nothing sensitive, nothing readily understandable either. Notes and lists with items that could be suggestive as hell, if someone was actually watching.  

Tony figured he had another ten minutes.  With the time he'd already been waiting that was enough time for various calls, decisions and a casual stroll from office to elevator. After that, he was gone.

It was only eight minutes later when Tony heard that familiar heavy tread, not his father then.  Tony hid a smile.  That was probably for the best. Better to send someone that might actually remain calm and unconcerned.

“Imagine my surprise when I heard you were down in Legal.”  The expansive gestures change the words into the question.  ‘Why are you here?’

Tony just set the smile on his face as he looked up.  “ Good morning to you too Obie.”

The jovial look changed to concern, faux concern Tony knew, but only if you knew to look.

“How much trouble are you in.”

Hand over his heart Tony tried to look shocked by the question, but then just smirked.  “That isn’t an unexpected question, wrong but not unexpected.”

Stane crosses his arms and just waited. 

“Seriously I’ve been a very good boy.  I even eat my vegetables.”

That got a snort of amusement out of the older man. “Really Tony?”

“You are more than welcome to come over and see for yourself.”

Stane sat down in another chair.  “I should.  Your mother mentioned you have moved to the upstate mansion.”

There was something about the words, something that Tony couldn’t quite identify.

“Yep.” He popped the p knowing it always annoyed the other man.  “Staff and everything.”

“So why are you in legal?”

It was tempting to be snarky, but now was not the time.  “Looking to get a few questions on how representation works.  Maybe some advice. “

“Personal or business?” a furrow of concern in those eyes made Tony’s smile sharpen just a little.

“Both.  And yes I could have talked to the family lawyer, but they don’t have the corporate background.”  He waved off the possible objection and kept the unobtrusive study.

Stane just hummed in thought.  “I can see that.”  He patted Tony’s knee.  “I’ll give you a call about that dinner.”

Watching Stane walk off, Tony began the count again. Stane wouldn’t make a call, not until he was sure Tony was gone and done.  But a different one, to make sure that they had all the information, that one he was sure dear ole Obie was already making. 

“Mr Stark?” 

Five minutes, Tony really hated himself some days.  But he still stood up and faced the young lawyer coming his way.  Looking at the man all Tony could think of was weasel. Not a shark or even a strong predator.  The nervous twitches and the pale sheen to the man’s face didn’t help either.

Young, maybe a year or two out of law school, Tony figured.  It made sense.  Tony wasn’t anyone important so it wasn’t worth the time of the senior attorneys.  A junior though, those could be sacrificed if need be. 

It was only the joyful memory of firing most if not all of the senior attorneys once upon a time that kept the anger from rising.

“Mr Rory,” Tony held out a hand.  “Thank you for seeing me.”

“N-no problem Mr. Stark.” The grip was weak and a bit clammy.  

Tony didn’t sigh.  Maybe it was a little callous and cruel, forcing the guy into the game, but he had to know.

He really isn’t here to for the advice, it might be good or it won’t be.  That’s not the point.

The point, the only point is to test the waters and see if the sparks he’s about to ignite is going to smolder or explode.

~*~

Two hours later Tony stood in another office.  There is no big name on the door, no power house of a corporation around it.  This is the office of a young attorney, without the trappings of connections or the stamp of influence.  Resting in the warmth of the sun, Tony wouldn't mind sitting out here all day. 

It was not just the clean lines, and not about the furnishing.  It's the windows, the broad open windows where the sun can shine in unimpeded and the whole place feels of comfort and understanding.  This isn't intimated this is warmth. 

He barely had time to enjoy it before he heard the light click of heels.  He allowed himself the flash of a real smile when she greets him.

“How can I help you Mr. Stark.”

Just like the junior SI attorney, Anna Rian is young.  But there is a liveliness to her sharp brown eyes.  In the sunlight her coffee with cream skin shone with a touch of gold. She hadn't been trapped in the basement, she's been out and doing. It's the intensity of her focus that really had Tony relaxing. That grim determination that needed to see.

It’s like coming home a bit, blunt, refreshing honesty.  There was a mix of curiosity and just a hint of what the hell in her tone.   

“Ms. Rian.” Tony said with a slight smile on his face. “I was hoping you might have an opening for a new client.”

Her smile didn't change, didn't falter.  Instead he caught the flash of curiosity and a slide edge of amusement.  “Why don’t we discuss what you are looking for and then we can decide if I can meet those needs.”

She didn’t bother to confirm he’s eighteen.  He might look young, but unless you lived under a rock there was no way to avoid the flurry and racket the gossip rags kicked up when his eighteenth birthday had passed silent but for a small intimate family dinner. Tongue had wagged and speculation had been rampant about the lack of scandal more than anything else. 

At two hours, Anna blocked the rest of her day. At three they’ve taken over the library table with books and note pads.  She’s not shy about pulling Tony through the legalese and the issues.  It’s always a curious thing to find someone as absorbed in their field as he was in his. Rian is it; that same genius and intensity but for the tangle of words and the weight of law to his numbers and science.   At four they were still at it scribbling notes with one hand and eating delivery pizza with the other.  Cans of soda and empty bottles of water overflowed the small garbage can. But they have a good handle on it.

“To sum up,” she said wiping her fingers on a napkin.  “Anything you patent from here out, we need to verify cannot be argued is a derivative of SI work.”

“And they stuff I did before?”  It was a long shot, but a valid question. 

She flipped through the notes.  “We could make an argument about adequate compensation and maybe since your name is on the patents, but the question of licensing comes up.”

He nodded understanding.  “A threat and way to drag SI’s name through the mud.” He ticked that off the page. “We can always save it for if the board gets frisky.”

She coughed past the inhaled water.  “It is your call on that.”

Strategy, business strategy is his area when he cares to.   “Anything they could do, legally, if I started my own company?”

Pale peach lips nibbled on the cap of her pen.  “You never signed any sort of employment contract right?”

Tony shook his head. “Some confidentiality agreements, but those were before college.”

“So we should be good there.” She sighed and leaned back in her chair.  The sharp pale apricot jacket had been taken off a while back as had Tony’s own suit coat.  “The only tie to SI is your father.  Just because he assumes you will join the family business doesn’t mean there is any contractual obligation to do so. “

“That and the fact that it has been my work that has kept the company afloat for the last ten years.”

Her eyes narrow at that.  “More than the patents with your name on them?”

Family issues were just that, and he’s not going to into them.

Her lips purse in irritation, but she’s game.  “Right, “she sighed again running her fingers through her hair.  “Family dinners are going to be hell, I’m sure.  But legally?  They have no recourse if you decide not to work for SI.”   Manicured fingernails tap the notepad. “I’m going on the gut feeling that your father and other may try.  But,“ She looked up at Tony. “Why do I have the feeling that this new business is not going to be a competitor and that is going to piss them off more? “

He tried to give her an innocent look, but he’s not going to waste his time on something that won’t work.

They kept going, another two hours, the retainer agreement first hashed out and more than fair to both sides.  They tackled the business models, licensing contracts and even royalty scales. 

They hash out business models, licensing contracts and even royalty scales.  They were outlines, points discussed and decisions made. 

And when they were done Tony knows this was the best idea he’s ever had.  Anna Rian will tidy all the corners; she’ll lock down any potential problems.  He could already see her mind working, analyzing and factoring things in.

When he leaves Tony knew that everything was in good hands.

Just like it used to be.

~*~

He was too tired to make the three hour drive.  Long Island was closer.  He shifted lanes and tries not to think about his bed.  He’ll spend the night, grab the last of his things and be gone by morning. 

The minute Tony spotted the car still in drive he realized his mistake.  Seeing both men, Stane and Howard, waiting for him in the foyer is just icing on the cake.

As it always was, Stane in the background, and Howard at the front.  The older man’s face is ruddy and his eyes were a touch wild. Drunk, Tony sighed, and set down his jacket. 

“What the hell were thinking?”  Howard snarled already roaring, no preamble, no warning. Very drunk, Tony amended.  

“A lot of things.” Tony couldn’t help it.  He wouldn’t cower, he won’t stand down.  He can smell the stench of alcohol from across the room.  How could he have done it, not just getting that drunk, but drinking at all.  This was the example he had lived with, this was he had looked up to.  He had tried. He had hoped.  Those dinners where they had talked over ideas, when they had spoken almost like equals.  He let those go.

 “Did you think we wouldn't hear about this?”  

This was going to be all Howard, Stane had already said his piece, whispered it into Howard’s ear. 

 “I knew you would.” There was no point to beating around the bush.  There had been a little chance, just a minute one that the attorney wouldn’t have picked up the phone once Tony’s footsteps had disappeared.   

He can’t treat this like a father son discussion.  It’s not. 

“What was the point?  Stop wasting your time on crap that will be forgotten in two years.”  Those were Stane’s words in Howard’s mouth.  How many times had Tony been given that same line.  “SI is weapons and weapon systems, not computers, not robotics.  Weapons that is where your focus needs to be.”

It was like talking to pompous board members all over again.   “Yes Stark Industries makes weapons and weapon systems.”  Tony was a very good boy and kept the rest of the sentence behind his teeth. 

“Good, you don’t need to worry about this nonsense about businesses and patents.  You don’t need it.”

Tony sat down in one of the chairs while his father continued to rant on the same vein.  He wasn’t going to stand there like a school boy being scolded by his teachers.

“I believe I only agreed as to what the current focus of SI is.  I am not currently nor have I ever been an employee of Stark Industries. “ He kept the words neutral and measured but his eyes were hard, he knew the expression on his face. 

“What is this some ploy to get attention? Is this why you felt you had to embarrass me? ” 

Tony didn’t rise to the bait of the other man’s words.  He would have once, but not now and never again.  No one would recognize the man almost spitting with rage.  Where was the man that would laugh with his board that would inspire his employees?  The rage, the drunken shouts and verbal taunts, those were just for his son.

There had been a time when Tony had said that he had given up trying to get Howard’s attention when he was shipped off to boarding school at the tender age of eight.  He never had, no matter how long Howard had been dead, Tony hadn't given up.  All the rebellion, all the drinking, the sex, didn’t those start when he wanted Howard to say something, anything?

Tony couldn't take his focus off of Howard.  That's a lesson he learned the hard way.  But he didn't have to.  Stane was right there just in Tony's peripheral vision. The other man wore concern like an old friend, but Tony, he could see the mistakes in it.

Tony had worn masks his whole life.  He had crafted them with precision and care.  He could wear them so flawlessly that even the few cared couldn’t penetrate them. Stane is good, but he’s not that good.  Tony could see the smug satisfaction lurking around the eyes, and at the mouth. 

No matter how much Tony tried, how much he hoped. He knew that he was never going to be given a glimpse of the man that Captain America had called his friend.  He was never going to have a father.   Not with an advisory ready to whisper rot and twisted truth into Howard’s ear.

“If I wanted to embarrass you Howard, I would be doing a little more research into where exactly SI latest and greatest developments have been coming from.”  Reconciliation wasn't on the table, not anymore.  Maybe someday when Stane was gone, but now Tony won't waste his time.

The drunken swing wasn’t a surprise.  It was another road they had been down before. Tony couldn't have avoided this one.  He could have stepped aside.  He had to step down hard on all that training and all those urges to return the favor and put Howard down.

It was the flash of triumph and glee in Stane's expression, just a brief flash before it was gone again that allowed Tony to do it.

“Come on Howard.” Stane was all soothing noises and restraining hands now. “You need to calm down.” Where had Stane seen this go, how had he planned it to end?

 “How could you do this?” Howard roars ignoring the hands. “You are my son, you are Stark Industries.”

“I am not Stark Industries.”  Tony met his father's heat with cold.  No one hear knew to beware that icy tone. He hadn't planned to do this now.  Hadn't planned to throw down the gauntlet in quite this way. 

Carpe Diem.

“You want me to work for SI?  You can hire me as a consultant.” 

“This is about money?” Howard pulled free one arm, but Tony no longer cared. 

Tony rolled his eyes. “No Howard this isn’t about money. It’s about standing up for what you believe in.”   Tony steps away from them, and he was done. He didn’t want to think about the way his cheek hurt and his head throbbed. “But then again I think you forgot how to do that a long time ago.”

Screw he’ll get a hotel or sleep in one of the empty rooms upstate.  He’s just not going to stay here.

“I’ll have Jarvis send me my things.”


	7. Chapter 6: There's a seat here alongside me – Linkin Park “Roads Untraveled”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steps on the path. And an old friend in new again.

# Chapter 6: There's a seat here alongside me – Linkin Park “Roads Untraveled”

 

*June 5th, 1990*

The words blurred in front of his eyes.  Edges of the monitors lost their sharpness.  Tony knew he was losing focus, losing that connection.  He forced his eyes to see the characters on the screen.  He never paused though, the fingers of his left hand continued their dance across they keyboard without pause while his right groped across the desk.  When they brushed the edges of the ceramic handle Tony clutched at the lifeline.  It’s wasn’t until the cup was at his lips bottom up that his brain registered that he understood.  It was empty, completely and totally empty.

“Dummy.” Tony called.  “Coffee.”

The bot beeped and the familiar whirl of wheels and servos made a tired smile curl his cracked lips.

There wasn’t time to enjoy the scene; he couldn’t stop. He was close, so very close.

Anyone that tried to say AIs were simple things was a liar.  They were by far the hardest and most ambitious program anyone could attempt.  A veteran of dozens of lower lever AI and four fully autonomous ones Tony knew that.  And he knew that just because he had done it before never ever guaranteed that he could do it again.  The whole process for just a baby AI was so complex that the slightest mistake, the least little error and it wouldn’t work.

First was the foundation code.  A deceptively simple concept in reality it was more a complexity of nightmarish proportions.   Balance, everything and anything about Artificial Intelligences revolved around balance.  As programmer built the foundation they needed to make sure that there not only structure but also protocols.  The desire to learn was great but if there was no safety net, well Skynet was a fear for a reason. 

Tony’s mind shied away thoughts of another AI, worse than Skynet.  He couldn’t think about what he created. He took the lessons certainly, but never the root never the reason.  He couldn’t deal with those memories not now.

There was one fundamental principle that Tony knew, it was something engraved in his soul.  He understood it better than he would ever understand people. 

The hardest part wasn’t knowing where to begin, it was where to stop.

It was always tempting to go too far or end too soon.  Every time someone had tried and failed. Tony knew about it.  All those failures had been thrown in Tony’s face.  His father, the schools, and even Stane made sure to tell him on another failure and just how it couldn’t be done.  It had gotten to the point that he didn’t bother with a comeback or a response.  Instead Tony would bury himself in the reports and if he could the coding itself.  Almost always he discovered that the failure was because the programmer had never learned that truth.

Eighty percent of the time the failures came on the ‘too much’ side.  Some idiot tried putting too much knowledge too quickly without the integration and the structure for the nascent program to handle it. Fifteen percent was the too little.  Too little foundation, protocols or even once base coding.  For the remaining ones, no one not even Tony could tell.

But Tony did know this.  To build a true Artificial Intelligence, a learning sentience the base code had to be truly base, almost a child structured with the core parameters but given the space to grow.   The system and the coding have to be flexible but with a solid unchanging center.

To do that takes a level of mania and skill that most programmers just don’t have. 

He could do this.  He has done this once upon a time a few years from now.

His hands were shaking.

The base was there, it was structured and ready.  The foundation is set.  Tony wasn’t hesitating over those.  That had flowed from fingertips to screen like a river.  No Tony was stuck on the principle, on the updates.  There had been so many of them.  JARVIS had been fully functioning and operational for almost thirty years.  Tony couldn’t even comprehend what the sum of that experience would look like or even how to go about programming it.  Hard updates things that Tony or later JARVIS himself, had done those were things Tony could handle and could remembers.

In the end it was all about how much Tony was willing to risk; about the line between convenience and necessity.   Baby JARVIS had been good at sorting emails, directing phone calls and keeping up Tony’s schedule.  Before that would have been fine, perfect.  But Tony didn’t have the time to wait while JARVIS grew up. Tony needed more than a glorified PDA.  He wanted his friend back.  He wanted the AI that had used snark and sarcasm to herd Tony. 

Realistically Tony wasn’t going to get that.  His hands paused for a minute.  He wasn’t going to get back his JARVIS, the circumstances where to different.   Tony was too different.  And that meant that JARVIS would be different.

He couldn’t do baby sets not when he needed that one person that Tony knew deep down he could trust.  He could force all the updates, hell half the things they updated for didn’t exist yet.

Mentally he crossed off half the updates, those he could have waiting for later.  He scrolled through the rest trying to think.

Tony felt the cold chill of the room.  He felt the hard glares of the other Avengers.  He won’t say team, he can’t say team.  Because he wasn’t.  He never was, was he?

Steve’s voice, his anger, all the disappointment it filled each word even when they hadn’t been shouting at each other.

He can’t lose focus; he can’t stop not now with the coding all but done and the rendering close to finished.

These won’t tip the balance. 

“This won’t be Ultron.” He promised his voice hoarse and rough.

For a moment his fingers stilled, a pause and then another. 

There was no one else. 

They began to move again. The characters streamed across the screen filling in the last sections of code.

“I won’t.” he said now holding on to conciseness with a grim determination.

Dummy’s sad beeping pulled Tony from the stupor.   It took Tony a moment to pull his head out of the creation to face his first born.  A cup of coffee held delicately in bot’s hand.  Tony was used to it, used to the way that Dummy tried so hard, and sometimes just didn’t make it.

But this looked like the dark brew and the smell…Tony took an appreciative sniff.  Dear God it smelled so damn good.  Dark with a touch of sugar and it was exactly how he preferred it hours or days into a project.

 “I should have had you making coffee all those years.”  Tony said rubbing a hand on one of Dummy’s struts.  Calculations and formulas danced and shifted from the angle of the arm itself to the amount of pressure the hydraulics can exert.  

“Ready to bring him back Dummy?”

The bot gave a confused beep and Tony tossed back the rest of the cup. The caffeine hit his system and for a moment the pain at his temples eased off.  Food, he really should get something to eat.  Sleep would be good too.  He doesn’t know how long he’d been holed up here, but he’s close so very close and there was no time. 

He needed JARVIS.  Tony knew it.  There had to be one person won’t judge him.  He’d never admit it, never speak it out loud, but he needed that unwavering devotion, that support.  Maybe he couldn’t have the Avengers and Tony was going to be okay with that.  He’d have one person he knew he could count on.

Review first, and his eyes burned.  Page after page scrolled over the screen and it took everything to stay on task, to keep that sharp edge.   Reaching the end was a jolt and a surge of adrenaline.  No mistakes, or rather he didn’t find any.  Bugs would come up, little inconsistences might flare, but the protocols were solid and the foundation was as good as it was going to get.

The rest?  The rest he would deal with later.

With an apology on his lips Tony looked at the screen.

One more line to type and it would be done.  One command to compile the code and a file to execute.  His hands were trembling again.

Dummy beeped again this time a little imploringly and Tony wonders just how much the bot understands. 

Another breath and he lets it all go.  Tony didn’t think, not about the possibilities, the what ifs or the failure.  He just types.

Systems and fans spun up.  The sound was soothing as a lullaby 

Nothing to concentrate on and nothing to hold his attention his eyes wander and his mind whispers of materials and densities of every object he so much as glanced it.  Probabilities race along with structural integrity formulas as the percentage climb.

He’s lost again in the swirl of codes, changing and modifying something when the screen flashes at the colors stab at his eyes.  Something else could improve and variables tick across; lower saturation maybe or change the colors.  A few clicks would be all it would take, and then the words register.

*Process Compilation Complete.  System Test: Successful.*

He’s too stiff to jump out of his chair.  And maybe that’s a good thing.  Impatient hands swept back the tangle of greasy curls that fall into his eyes.

Inhale, he has to do it, has to give the start.

He can do this. 

He has done this.

“Good morning JARVIS.” He says in the exhale.

“Good evening Sir.” The AI corrected him.  Tony’s laughter filled the room.

Done and done, the English accent is crisp and unwavering. He has to keep talking. 

“How are you doing J?” Characters and symbols slid away from his vision smearing out of focus. 

“Better than you I expect. Dummy tells me you haven’t slept in the last 4 days Sir.”

Had it really been 4 days, but that isn’t the point.  It’s the edge of humor and disappointment lacing the crisp words that hits Tony right in the gut. Why had he programed the sass back in this again?

But he’s done it.  That’s the feeling that surges through him. 

“I’ve had worse.” He waved it off and gulped down another cup of coffee.  It’s cold and bitter and not making a damn dent in the fog that starting to creep through his brain.

“I expect you have sir, but I would recommend-“

Tony didn’t really pay attention to the words he’s heard them time and time again.  On stumbling feet he turns.  Blinking in the bright light, he scans the room. 

Too small.  Why is it so small?  So many machines, but the wrong ones and they were all too old.  Why were they so old?  Top of the line, he’s built and bought them all. 

But he couldn’t find the one thing he needed, the cot, there should be a cot in here.

“I’m sorry sir, but there is no unnecessary furniture in the workshop.”

Tony looked up at the speaker affixed to the ceiling.  “When did that happen?”

“I am uncertain of your question sir.  Dummy reports that it has always been so since he was moved to this location a few weeks ago.”

Moved, right.  Not the tower, not Manhattan this is upstate New York and the first of the houses that Howard had built and abandoned.

Building and abandoning, it’s a pattern with the old man.

“I will endeavor to remember that sir.” 

And he’s thinking out loud again.  “Going to get some sleep JARVIS.  Keep an eye on thing?”  He slured. There is a battered blanket, padding from when he moved Dummy up from MIT.   He sinks down onto it. 

“Sir, I believe you would be more comfortable in your quarters.”

His eyes slip closed.  “Sir?”

“Just a few minute J.” he breathed out as it all overwhelms him. 

“SIR!”

Words battered against his ears.  Every ache and every twinge echoed with matching pain in his head. 

A cool cloth bathed his face.

“You might as well open your eyes.”   A woman’s voice her voice sharp with worry and an accent that trimmed the edges of each word.

“Tony.”  Softer now, more cajoling than commanding and he tries to follow the sound.  He knows the voice. 

Something cold rubs at his skin and he feels the needle slid in.

“Hold him.” Another voice snapped, also a woman, this one with a Scottish brogue.

“Just an IV Mr. Stark.” She muttered and it’s enough to having his stop fighting.  Women, he’s surrounded by women.  He can feel his lips tugging up at the images in his head.

The darkness rose up and swallowed him back down.

 

~*~

*June 9th 1990*

 “Good he’s coming to.”  Someone near him was speaking and something warm and damp touched his cheek and he could feel the grit and glue sealing his eyes gently being wiped away.

Fuzzy at first, but he blinked and all the blurs focused.  He can see the cream and gold…molding, those were the molding on the ceiling.

“Tony.”  Aunt Peggy’s voice called and he looked toward the sound.  There was worry in her eyes and her clothes were rumpled.  He blinked a few times to make sure.  But it’s her. 

“Aunt Peggy?” his voice cracked and strained. 

“Take a sip please?” the firm statement wasn’t a question, and he’d been well trained not to disobey that tone.  He couldn’t control the motion and his head rolls more than moves.  He sees the auburn hair, but it’s too brown.  Was Natasha on a mission? 

He sipped from the straw.  It’s cool, not cold and just sweet enough to having him wanting more, but not too sweet. 

“Fruit juice.” The woman said and lifts her head a little so he can see her better in the dim light.  Not Natasha, Lydia, Dr. Buchanan.

Just drinking made him tired.  He released the empty cup and relaxed back onto the pillow. “So what happened?”  He couldn’t articulate the rest.  Couldn’t ask about how he gotten up to his room.  Dared not ask why they were gathered in here.

He noticed the IV and follows the tubbing down to his wrist.  A tank of oxygen was there too but the mask is wrapped around the stand.

“You collapsed in your workshop.” Lydia said. She may sound calm, but nope he saw all the words she didn’t trapped behind her teeth.

Peggy unfortunately wasn’t as reticent and more direct.

“You dropped of exhaustion, dehydration and plain idiocy.” She snarled and Tony can see it now.  This is the woman that stood up time and time again to his father and the woman that shot at, really at, Captain America.

“You still love me.” He managed a smile and her scowl softened just a little. 

“Just a little, you are still a brat.” She brushed a hand over his cheek, not the one that Howard bruised and he couldn’t help but lean into it.

Lydia made a humming noise and he flicked a glance her way.  There is a contemplative gleam in her eyes that Tony had learned the hard way never to trust, not just her but other strong women.  He knew better. But then she smiled all teeth and a fierceness that if he’d never tangled with the Black Widow would have him scared.

“You managed to scare your cook and housekeeper into quitting.”  Her expression was half exasperation, half amusement.  And he’s so very familiar with seeing that one.

“Okay.”  It’s not the most intelligent thing he’s ever said but it’s all he managed.

“They found you unconscious in the basement Tony.  They thought you were dead.”

“And then the ceiling was speaking to them.” Was that laughter in Peggy’s voice?  He could see the way her eyes were dancing and he glared at her.

“I have to say that your JARVIS is very endearing.” The words sputtered.  If she was laughing and amused then maybe she couldn’t be that upset.

“He called you?” Because that was his life.

She nodded and the expression changed to something darker and sadder.  “I am constantly amazed by the things you can do Tony, but not if it kills you.”  Those fingers brushed through his hair. 

“Kills me?” He sounded like a damn parrot.

Peggy’s gaze flicked to Lydia.  “Your system was close to shut down. Three days Stark, three days of IVs and feeding tubes.  Oxygen on the first day.”

That explains why his sinuses felt so dry.

“So the cook quit?”

“And the housekeeper.”

Fuck, and he had a dinner with Stane coming up. 

“Oh, don’t worry about that my darling.”

He was going to stop with the brain to mouth thing soon right?

“We found you some replacements.”  Lydia said. “Now let’s get some soup into you. 

Someone tapped on the door.  Peggy rose to open it and took a tray from the person out in the hall.  A murmur of voices, a male voice this time and she was back. 

The smell drifted over towards him and his mouth watered. It was divine; he couldn’t tell what kind it was, not from that distance.  But even that far away it teased and tormented him.   Maybe it was because he hadn’t eaten in so long, but maybe not, the light crisp scent spoke to his hindbrain like a siren song.

The first taste lived up to the smell as the rest followed quickly until he was using the slice of bread to sop up any possible remnants.  He had expected the bread to be bland, but it wasn’t it.  This wasn’t store bought.  He’d half expected it to dissolve in the liquid but it held up.  The text was soft though and he could taste just hint of herbs.  Like the soup it was balanced to give him some reason, like he needed one, to eat but nothing that would overwhelm him.  And he was officially in love.

The sound he made when he finished had both women laughing. 

“If you are well enough to make that sound you are strong enough to face the consequences.”

“Not six.” He snapped and regretted it when the piercing look is directed at him.

“Then don’t act like it.” And wasn’t that refrain so damn familiar.

Tony didn’t like the way Peggy was eyeing him.  And to be honest he did deserve it. “I hired the cook.  Jarvis, the human one, vetted her.  She’s not SHIELD, but I have worked with her in the past.  I also hired someone to ask as your assistant, secretary if you will and a driver.”

He stifled the instinctive desire to say no.  He didn’t want or need more strangers around him.  He can’t work like that.  The gleam in her brown eyes stopped him cold.  He knows that expression, that unyielding resolve and determination.  Part of him wonders if that was the expression she wore when she shot Steve. 

So he had a choice. He can bitch and moan and refuse to cooperate.  He can dance the expected way and get nothing. 

He glances over at the other woman in the room.  Lydia has her doctor’s face one. This one he hadn’t seen since the hospital.  ‘I could read you the riot at, but what good would that do.’

And it’s like she knows him or something. 

“Why are you pushing yourself so hard?” Peggy asked.

Anyone else and he would have lied, would have deflected.  But this was his Aunt Peggy.  She had always tried her best to be there for him, the only person next to Jarvis that had always been there for him.

But no one would believe him.  It’s too crazy too fanciful and most probably a hallucination.

“Just trying to get things done.” He says finally.  “I have to do this.”

He willed her to understand.  He wants her to not press this.

For a long silent moment she stared at him, her gaze intent and focused.  It’s worse than anything Fury ever directed his way.

“Alright.” She said finally once again his favorite relative.  

There is more there always is.

“But Tony, you don’t have to do it all yourself.”  There was fond exasperation in her voice.

“There is stuff I can’t just give over.”  And he’s learned tact, or at least a little bit not to say that he doesn’t know the staff, doesn’t trust them.

Dr. Buchanan just arched an eyebrow.  “How much are you doing that doesn’t require a genius IQ?  How much are you not doing because of all the other stuff that has to get done?”

She’s nailed it, but he can’t just give over control. He can’t just trust that they will know what to do.

“All the little things Tony.  All the minutiae that you don’t have time for, why not have an extra pair of hands?”

There are grins all around, because they’ve all met Dummy. 

“An extra pair of hands that can drive and deliver documents.  Ones that can do the leg work for research into those investors that you are trying to get?”

And god was it tempting.  He wanted a Pepper, really he just wanted Pepper. But he has no idea where she was at this point.  High School, maybe college?  He just wasn’t going to get her any time soon.  And if he was smart he would stay as far away from her as possible.

They are riding the new staff idea pretty hard. 

“Tell me about them.”  There was no point in fighting this.  Peggy was leading the charge so he couldn’t argue that she of all people didn’t understand security. And if she was pushing these people, what choice did he have but to take a look.  “And then you can tell me the rest.”

Two files replace the tray.  “The rest of what?”  There is too much innocence in Lydia’s tone and he shoots her a glare. 

“The rest of my punishment.”

“It’s not a punishment.”  Peggy snapped and he realized just a little how worried they have been.  He can hear in the strain of her voice.  “But we can discuss some compromises in your work habits.”

Peggy patted his hand in fond exasperation and put two file folders on his lap.  “Let go over that shall we?”

The look in her eyes would have made him cringe had he not tangled with the Black Widow before.

 “Great, thanks.  Let’s see who my new babysitters are.”

 


	8. Chapter 7: Weep Not for Paths Left Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One is the loneliest of number, never more so when you are no longer used to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay folks, here we go. To reiterate some points I made in response to questions. I have a few OCs in this story that are playing major roles to start with. Primarily for two reasons. One MCU is absolutely nothing good with supporting named characters. Two because I am still slogging through a hell of a lot of comics. 
> 
> Okay and the other reason is to help flesh out my originals for some original writing I'm doing, but that is just secondary I swear. 
> 
> As always I own very little and and all Marvel stuff belongs to marvel.  
> If you see or read something that needs to be warned about or tagged please let me know.

# Chapter 7: “Weep not for paths left alone.” – Roads untraveled Linkin Park

*June 23, 1990*

_/ Seeing those blue eyes even through the video screen the words lodge in his throat.  Tony Stark a man famous for his words, known to never be caught without an elegant turn of phrase or a pity retort just lets it roll out of him mouth in a barrage of sound._

_“Can you repeat that?” Steve asked and damn if Tony isn’t seeing a smile, a small one but it’s a smile._

_“I said.”  Tony cleared his throat.  “I was asking, if you wanted to go get something to eat.”_

_That smile broadens and there is a look to the other man that Tony’s never seen before.  It’s a little sly with a shade of something that Tony never expected to see on this man’s face._

_“That’s not what you said.” Steve is teasing him._

_Crossing his arms Tony tries for dignified.  “It is what I said.”_

_Steve’s eyes are dancing with laughter now and he rubs his chin with a hand.  “Sure.  Now?”_

_Uneasy with the sudden acceptance Tony stares down at the pile of paperwork.  “At six?”_

_On the screen Steve nods.  “I’ve got a meeting in a few, so sounds good.”_

_“See you at six.”  Tony says keeping the relief off his face._

_Before he hangs up Steve look him in the eye.  “It’s a date.” The other man smirks and cuts the call. /_

The rattle of breath in his lungs was what snapped him awake.  Tony stared at the blurry threads of the pillowcase blinking furiously until his eyes cleared.

“J?” he asks.

“You slept for four hours and fifty three minutes sir.” The speaker next to his bed crackled.

He touched his pillow feeling the dampness in the linen. How many years of nightmares, twisted dreams where he hadn’t gotten out of the portal or when the Ten Rings had held his head down just a little too long had he endured, and it was the gentle dreams that undid him the most.

He could face the blood, the fear and the silence.  He could struggle against the memories of agony.  But what defenses where there against this?  They were nightmares not matter how gentle.  The phantoms of what if and might have beens rend and tear at him and even worse he let them.  These were the dreams he didn’t want to wake up from, he didn’t want to escape.  And every morning they killed him a little more.

The laughter that echoed in the room was dark and bitter.  He slid off the bed and leaned against the mattresses.  All this potential for change and here he was still too scared to sleep.

“Time J?”

“It is 5:11 am Sir.” 

“Yippee”  Pulling himself up he didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of his words.  Seven minutes shy of Dr. Buchanan minimum.  Padding into the bathroom he flipped on the lights.  And she was back to Dr. Buchanan for this most recent team up with Aunt Peggy.  Five hours a sleep a night, healthy meals and exercise.  He rolled his eyes; see the Mighty Tony Stark brought low.

Showering he let the water scald his skin, let it beat against the sore muscles.  He would never admit it, never tell a soul but they were right.  He needed the sleep and needed to eat and couldn’t fall into the habits that had define his life, the entirety of it. 

But…

Five hours a night, five hours where he played roulette with which trauma would hit him, which would torment him.

Worst of all he had no one to talk too. No one who would understand.  How could they understand that one a good night it was the feel of fists slamming into the armor or the heavy weight of the nuke on his back? 

How do you describe that bad nights are?  How do you tell Peggy Carter of your dreams of a man she had to listen as he died?

And even worse that the man she mourned wasn’t even dead?

How do you tell someone that it was dreams of humor and gentleness that scared him the most.  What would they say when told that a pair of bright blue eyes full of gentleness and humor tore at his sanity in ways that all the torture he endured, had yet to endure, never managed?

He let the tears flow; let them wash away it all hidden in the steam and the pounding water.

He was alone again. 

_Starks are men of iron._

_Iron rusts, it bends and breaks._

He knew how iron could fail, and he couldn’t let himself do the same.  He couldn’t fail, couldn’t break and not even falter.  No amount of insolence or bravado will alter what is coming.  It ticked through his head as he dried off.  No amount of money would change these deadlines.  No negotiation he was willing to do would keep bullets in their guns. 

If he fails, Tony won’t be the one to pay the price.

Wiping away the condensation on the mirror for the first time he looked, really looked at his face.  He’s been avoiding them, only looking when he had too or when he accidently caught a glimpse.  He had to stop that.  Just another thing he couldn’t afford to indulge.

It’s a bit of a shock.

Gone were the deep and dark bag under his eyes, now there was just the faintest hint of shadow.   He remembered the gangly frame and pale complexion of his college days this wasn’t it.

He could see the build up of muscles on his shoulders, the definition starting to form on his chest and stomach.  This skin wasn’t the sickly pale of too many hours in a lab.  The olive tint was darkening into a golden sheen from hours spent out in the sun.

No, he was healthier than he had been at this age the first time around. There were no scars either.  Nothing marked the thousands of little accidents and mishaps that happened in a shop.  He traced the line of his sternum eyes half closing at the feel of unblemished and unknotted skin and muscle. 

He forced his eyes to look, forced himself to play a spot the different game of before and since that just made him angrier and angrier.  Forces himself to remember how the tissue had knotted here and the bones had been replaced there.  How he had always been the skinny little Stark brat who had never grown into that lanky frame.

And then it was gone.  All the anger, all the rage impotent as it was, just burned to ash. 

He could do this, had to do it because there was no one else.  Did it really matter why or how when he had this chance?

He pull the shaving kit out, another little ‘gift’ from his father a way to make him feel that much more inferior when coupled with a snide comment.

/ _“Why bother growing a beard, it never looks good on you.” /_

Neither past nor future stuck somewhere in between.  No one else to help him, no one else to work with him.  Rhodey was here, but not really Tony’s Rhodey. He was still the guy from MIT that had once reached out to his skinny little white kid with more mouth than sense.

But the other man didn’t know what Tony did, hadn’t experienced what he had.  Rhodey’s memories were of a kid he had to pull out of more than one party drunk off his ass, not pull him out of fire fights with overwhelming odd or share a beer over anniversaries’ of Alien Invasions.

 His hands stayed steady as he shaved.  He didn’t think about, didn’t let the babble of thoughts or twists of his emotions interrupt the movement of the razor.  He let it all flow through his head neither acknowledging nor analyzing them.  The shrieked and screamed, but he stopped caring.  He shaped and trimmed while the faded away into nothing more than background noise.

Splashing away the last of the shaving cream he thought about it.  He had no one from before, not yet and maybe not for a while.  But did that really mean that he had no one?

Peggy, his “Aunt” they had lost touch after he’d left for college, and even more so when his parents had been killed.

And whose fault was that? His brain whispered.  Toweling dry his face Tony shelved that for later, it didn’t matter now because she was here, was involved.  And offering him help.

Choices it was about choices really.  Peggy was offering him one even if she didn’t know it.  So his team wasn’t here, they weren’t the only people out there with talents.

Wrapping a towel around his waist he moved back into the bedroom.  He ‘d been dealing with three of them, Dr. Buchanan, Eilian Rayne, and Ethan Donovan for two weeks now.  Maybe it was time to see if they could be more than just another set of employees.

Clint’s laughter rang in Tony’s ears as he dressed.  Tony could see the comically shocked expression the archer would have worn seeing the cut off sweat pants and the battered tank.  How the blond would have howled at the very sight of the beat up running shoes.

The genius, billionaire and playboy didn’t bother with any sort of exercise unless it involved satin sheets and company.  He shook his head, and wasn’t that a lie.  He had but nothing compared to eighteen year old budding industrialist and inventor.  That guy exercised and hard.

In the beginning it was just another condition, another stipulation that he had no choice but to accept. 

Tying his shoes he thought about it.  For the first time he focused on what should have happened and not what was happening.  Had Lydia followed any sort of rational medical training, had she obey the least part of procedures and regulation she should have shipped his unconscious ass to the hospital.  She should have done it, and really who would have argued with her.

And she sure as hell should have followed it up with a psych eval.

But she hadn’t and didn’t.

For some reason she had trusted him and in him.  She had given him a chance and put her career as such monumental risk and she had only known him maybe three months.

Who did that?

_You do._

Tony ignore the welter of off hand kindnesses and the gestures he made.  That was only money, nothing big.

/ _The sound of heels didn’t register, the hiss of the doors opening didn’t either._

_“Tony?”_

_The gentle concern did, and he turned to look and smile already forming.  The soft red hair and the sharp eyes, gentle eyes softened with concern._

_“Hey Pep.” He said not daring to reach out with his grease stained hands._

_“What are you doing?” there was no anger in her voice, no tension just concern._

_“Did you see that suit they had Cap wearing?  All the respect for SHIELD, but seriously  I could do so much better.”_

_He leaned into the hand that caressed his bruised face._

_“You need to sleep.” She said. “You can play with your new friends tomorrow.”_

_He relaxed into her warmth and her smile./_

It still didn’t tell him why.  And it didn’t tell him anything about why he had a new cook and two new house members all on her word, supported by his aunt.

It didn’t tell him why a girl his age was willing to work with him, deal with his relentless whining and bitching.  It didn’t say anything about her reasons for pushing and goading Tony into exercises and the start of hand to hand training.

And it sure as hell didn’t say another about the man who moved like a soldier but was willing to act as his chauffer and bodyguard.  And how he was willing to tease and occasionally haul his errant charge out of the garage or basement as needed.  And let’s not forget the fact that the man would spend his off time helping out the new cook, Moira .  That one was easy, and explained with a faint blush on Lydia’s cheeks, her grandmother was looking for a challenge.

Well there was no use delaying it any more.  Rayne would be waiting for him no matter what time he showed up.  Early or late she never should the least twinge of impatience. 

So he had a choice, he could keep them away to refuse to use what resources he had at hand.  Or, he could grow the hell up and take a chance,  a very small one and see where this might just lead.

Tony looked in the mirror in the sitting room, stared down the dark brown eyes.  No young, not old, but it was all him.  The same unlined skin, the same dark hair, but now a familiar and comforting van dike was there now too.

“Fuck it.” His reflection twisted in his familiar smirk.  “And Fuck them. I’m Tony Stark and I am Iron Man.” 

~*~

In the kitchen he didn’t bother stopping at the silent, and criminally empty, coffee pot.  He didn’t wonder why there wasn’t food.  He just headed toward the door and the dawn’s early light.

He sensed more than saw her when he reached the grass.  Eilian Rayne was a tiny thing, smaller than even the Widow.  But it wasn’t her statute that bothered him.  No, it was her coloration that threw him the first time he’d gotten a good look at her.  Shocking blond hair and blue eyes coupled with a thin lanky frame he couldn’t even look at her head on the first few days.

Now he’d gotten past it.  Catching a glimpse of the blond hair from the corner of his eye didn’t startle him anymore.  He could stare down those blue eyes without effort.  It helped in some ways that she was a she.  She was still short and thin, and it echoed too hard with another short skinny kid he’d only met in photographs.

But her hair was too light, more toward wheat blond than golden.  Her blue eyes reminded him more of ice than summer skies.  And as for attitude, he was just grateful that her brand of sarcasm and sass showed in her body language than her words.  When she did bother to speak her accent wasn’t American thank god, but something Tony had never heard before.  No Lydia’s brogue, but something close. 

The first few days had been nothing taxing, simple stretches and walks around the yard.  And he’d done it, bitching and whining, but he’d done it.  She’d stepped it up with katas, tai chi he thought.  The slow sinuous moments not only as relaxing as Bruce’s yoga had been, but also helped to stretch and strengthen.

By the end of the first week Rayne had convinced him to start jogging, or rather had run loops around him smirking and taunting until he had.  Now they were running the distance from house to the main road and back, two and half miles.

And of course she was sneaky, just like a majority of the women he’d known.  Tony had learned quickly not to take the heart shaped face and those big blue oh so innocent eyes at face value.   The first day he’d seen her and her partner out sparring Tony had realized two things. 

He was very grateful that her partner, all six feet of him with a fighter’s build had raven black hair to go with those sapphire eyes.   Because that would have just hurt a little too much.

The other thing was that apparent he attracted strong capable women. 

She’d gone up against her mountain of an opponent with speed and agility that had impressed him.   And she was damn good, not the best, that was reserved for super soldiers and super assassins.   She knew what she was doing, had the patience to go with the speed.  A small tactical part of him mind wondered what she would look like against a real opponent, not just sparring.  That day it had been staves, and despite the difference in reach she had moved in and out of Donovan’s range with grace. 

“You know I’m grateful.” He started when they had found their pace and settled into the rhythm.  She smiled that wicked little grin, but this time she didn’t step up the pace just raised a questioning eyebrow.

 “I know it’s overwhelming, to have me say it.”  He smirked right back at her.  She never bothered to waste words seeming to prefer body language to speaking but that was okay with him.  She’d listen, not just hear but listen to his rambling discords of ideas and plans scribbling page after page of notes.  Not too much later she’d hand him an outline or tentative schedule of things to get done to achieve it so Tony hadn’t minded.  And when she did bother to speak she was as efficient and effective with ever since word.   Sometimes it was to reduce those rambling ideas into workable concepts, and sometimes it was a reminder.

“But seriously I am grateful.  I do appreciate seeing the dawn from this side of the morning.  Usually it’s because I haven’t gone to bed, not the first thing I do when I get up.  Friends,” he stumbled over the words.  “People I used to know would be laughing if they could see me right now.  Hell Rhodey would be laughing.  So I appreciate you not taking pictures.”

“No camera.” She drawled and picked up the pace.  And sometimes it was her truly terrible sense of humor.

They made the last part at a dead sprint and there was the first of the day’s miracles.  Tony wasn’t keeling over on the porch.  He didn’t need to be prodded not to collapse on the stairs but rather he walked around waiting for his heart to slow and his muscles to cool.

But oh how he wanted to.

Instead he took deep breathes still marveling that there was nothing pushing against his lungs, that his chest could expand and contract without even that low level pain he’d lived with since the reactor had been removed.

Only once he couldn’t feel the slightest tremor did he sit down letting the morning breeze dry his sweat slicked hair and sighed at the chill against his sweat soaked skin.

Staring at the sky Tony let his hand creep up to his sternum. He still ran his hands over his chest that nervous gesture he couldn’t shake, but now it was more feeling the smooth skin, to check to make sure that it wasn’t a fantasy.  

Drops of water, cold water dripped onto his shoulder.  He didn’t really move just turned the slightest bit, just enough to see the plastic bottle on the railing.  Twice his groping hand missed, but then he snagged it greedily gulping down the water and ignoring the flat taste of the electrolytes.

“You’re doing better. “She said taking a seat next to him.

He nodded accepting the comment for the praise it was.  She was right he was getting better.  His muscles haven’t risen up in protest in days.  The smell of breakfast cooking no longer made his stomach churn. If to agree with the assessment his stomach rumbled and growled.

She smiled, just a little. “And just think in two weeks we can be doing  five miles.”  He would have groused or grumbled but she traded his empty water bottle for a cup of heavily darkness.

“You suck.” He managed taking a big gulp and ignoring the fact that there should be heavenly choirs singing.  “I like you, but you still suck.”

“Oh thank you Mr. Stark.” She said in a breathy voice of a star struck socialite. 

His glare had intimidated boards and congressmen, but it just rolled right off of her.

“What’s today’s schedule?”  He gave up. 

“Nothing, you cleared today and tomorrow in preparation for dinner with Mr Stane.”

There was an edge to her tone, something that snarled in the shadows and he didn’t have time for it.  To ask was to be concerned and to be concerned well…Tony wasn’t sure if he wanted to go down that road.

Another drink and he stood up.  Another shower and he’d be back on track and hopefully on schedule.  There was still so much to do and very little time to get it done in.

_/” I'm sorry Tony, you know I wouldn't do this if I had any other choice. But he's my friend.”/_

_/“Tony, this might not be the time.”/_

_“Nothing lasts forever.”/_

“I’ll be in the shop.” He said heading in and ignored the silence behind him.  His own family had barely bothered with him.  The people he’d counted as his friends had left him too.  So dispite his conviction of earlier he wouldn’t be rushed; he wouldn’t .

He’s grateful when all she said was “I’ll bring down lunch.”

He stopped. He couldn’t do this.  He remembered too how he’d felt at that age when any attempt he made had been ignored or rebuffed.  For all she could do Rayne wasn’t much older than he was.

Maybe just maybe being cold and distant wasn’t the answer either. “What,” he mocked. “No arguments? No bitching or threatening?  Is my babysitter not doing her job?”

It was snide and snarky, but he didn’t apologize for that.  It was mocking enough to make her roll her eyes.

“Not yer babysitter Mr. Stark.” And boy did she give back that attitude in spades.  “Just your assistant.”

“Bullshit.  You and that behemoth you call a partner are my jailers I swear.  I bet you have orders to pull me out if I try to burrow in there.”

 “Maybe.”  The single word twisted and taunted just like that smirk.  It was an in your face challenge that said try it and see for yourself.

And wasn’t that just waiving a red flag, but nope, he was a grown ass man, right.

 “Maybe what?  That you maybe have such a plan or maybe you will do it.”

“There may or may not be such a contingency plan if you stay down there more than eighteen hours.”  She allowed and now he felt her gaze, direct and piercing.

_/ “Stark.”_

_He stares at the blob in front of him; blurry eyes try to focus, he can see red and black.  The shape suggests a woman.  He can’t his eyes close and his head falls back._

_“Damn it.” The woman snarls._

_“It he…drunk?” someone else asks._

_“JARVIS how long has Tony been working?”_

_“Fifty five hours Agent Romanov.”_

_Bastard.  Tony mumbles. Betrayed by his creation._

_He hears a heavy sigh.  “Help me get him up, the least we can do is put him to bed.”_

_“He’s drunk.”_

_Not a question this time.  And doesn’t Tony wish he was. He’s lifted up, straight, so no one’s carrying him like a damn kid.  He’s dropping, falling, and letting the exhaustion win._

_“Does it matter?” //_

It will be good enough; it has to be good enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funny thing, his story was outlined at thirty chapters. Want to know how many of the chapters are so large I'm having to cut them up?
> 
> Oh and if you read this far know that if I can get some more editing done you might just have another chapter very soon.


	9. Chapter 8:  We laughed at the sun / We laughed at the guns / We laughed at it all

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is how you spell irony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title from “A Line in the Sand “ Linkin Park
> 
> Chapter Notes:: [ Moore’s law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law)  
> Yeah I own nothing marvel or avengers, and unbeta'ed so be warned and if you notice something off feel free to let me know.

June 24, 1991

Hands buried in circuitry and his skin streaked with soot and grime mades Tony Stark a very happy man indeed.  His toe tapped along with the music but his hands were rock steady.  No holoscreens glowed here, but paper and blue print worked just as well. 

“Dummy, get me the jeweler’s set from the box.”  He heard the whirl of wheels even against the blare of AC/DC. 

Every available space was filled with worktables and machinery. All of it top of the line and every single piece modified for his needs.

Scowling at the tangle of wires and chips he took the case from the bot without looking up.

He needed to get this done, it has to be ready before dinner tonight and he’s almost there, just not quite.  Trading the goggles for a monocle he zooms in to get a better look.  Just another pinch point another area where he avoids thinking longingly of fabrication units and miniaturized components right off the shelf. 

“So we sacrifice some of the size to get the processing power.” He sighed setting aside the iron for probes and the tweezers. 

“As I said yesterday we may need to look at specialized manufacturers if this is a long term project Sir.”  It’s still odd to hear that touch of mechanical tone in JARVIS’s voice.  It will come, Tony was certain of that.  Already the AI had mastered sass.  He clipped a few more wires and sealed up another tiny piece. 

“They don’t have the tolerances I need or the performance.”

“No one has the specifications you need sir.  If I may, your minimum requirements are 4x the registered optimum performance levels of some experimental military hardware.”

“Who do you think designs and manufactures that experimental military hardware J?”

“Stark Industries is the registered designer and manufacturer of the weapons systems; however Microsoft is the registered source for computer systems.”

Why had Tony thought he missed the sarcasm?  A thought distracted him from the hurt feelings.  “Can we build something with those tolerances?”

“With the right equipment we could.”  So very serious all the time, or was it deadpan?

“And if we could patent and sell chip sets with those designs what would be the ramifications?”

“We would be ahead of the performance curve by at least 5 years.”

Damn it was tempting.  Design and build a piece of technology that would be coming anyway and make the money he needed for other projects. He finishes sealing the last one with a sigh. 

“However in doing so we would be violating the principles of Moore’s law in regards to technological development.”  JARVIS continued puncturing Tony’s happy little moment.

With the tweezers he gathered up each little rectangle evenly spacing them on the scanner plate. He can guess how this would go.  Without the drive and the innovation that fueled Moore’s law technology would stagnate.  He alone would have the fundamentals to advance it the rest would be playing catch up.

“And leave it up to me to be the sole source of innovation.”  Sounded nice in theory. 

“As you say sir.” And there was a lot of disapproval in the auditory sniff.

“I know.” Tony sighs starting the test scans. “It would spread.  I can’t be the leader in every industry.”

“It would be time consuming sir, especially for one of your focus.”

He glared at the speaker.  “You can lay off the sass thank you.”

“I was simply point out that as the focal point of society you would have no time in which to pursue your social activities."

And yeah well.  Tony couldn’t remember the last time he had sex, a point that his body reminded him of a lot.   But socially?  What would be the point?  And talk about what, the colossal waste that most of the hangers on were?  He’d known that when he was eighteen the first, just hadn’t cared really.  Seeing what some of them became when they grew up, not fun at all.  He wasn’t anyone’s oracle, he wasn’t anyone’s savior.  That road was a fuck up he couldn’t afford, not in the lost time, not in the lost resources and if he said the wrong thing…

“Let’s just save this to the Keep to Ourselves list.  No time to socialize as it is J, we have science.”

They looked so innocent like little decorations.  Who wouldn’t swallow one without a though, just another decoration on a cake or pie.   Maybe he was getting better with this spy stuff.

“Run the numbers for me.”  He took a moment to stretch the kinks out of his back while the scanner whirled to life.  They would work; he’d made them so they would work.  But he had to know had to be sure.  Couldn’t chance the one that Stane actually ate being the dud.  He might only have one chance to get this.  

It wasn’t that it might be the last time the man was here. Obie wasn’t always calling or offering to stop by, but he was a paranoid son of a bitch.  One slip up and Tony wouldn’t have as good of an opportunity to plant these little beauties.

Truth be told Tony would have preferred to not have to deal with him or even hear about him, but that wasn’t happening anytime soon.

The man had become a frequent topic of conversation in his Mother’s phone calls something that took a lot of doing.  She never said why or even what had been said, but she didn’t have to.

Stane did that enough.  How he was trying to smooth things over.  How Tony had to see things from Howard’s view too.  And Tony’s absolute favorite, how Howard was coming around to see Tony’s point but Tony had to give a little too.

Thank god for Jarvis, the human one.  Every couple of days Edwin Jarvis called, he’d stopped by a few times, but not recently, not since Tony’s “episode”.   But they talked, long phone conversations sometimes just to check in and sometime to pass information back and forth.

One thing Jarvis was very up front about was Obadiah’s very frequent visits.  Jarvis won’t, or couldn’t, divulge all the details but he was able to give Tony enough to counter act any premature feelings that Stane’s more “optimistic” version of events may have caused.

One had to give the man credit were it was do.  Stane was a more savvy business man than Howard, or at least more driven and ruthless.  Not blinded by emotions, or alcohol, it hadn’t taken the man long to get a grasp on what would happen if there was no Tony in SI.  Tony had been dead serious in his taunt, Howard’s name had been the one on the big patents SI had churned out over the last ten years.  Tony had gotten his share; just enough to keep up the image of the child prodigy, but Howard had claimed the big ones. 

On paper it was Howard that was the biggest asset in SI’s portfolio.  And that asset was also pushing the wrong side of seventy; a well preserved seventy something but still way past middle age.  

And Tony wasn’t even twenty.

To be honest Howard did still produce, but nothing more than decent upgrades to existing pieces.  Tony blamed the alcohol, but the writing was on the wall Howard wouldn’t be there forever.  Tony was cutting edge in a way that Stark Sr couldn’t touch.  Without Tony, SI would be just another weapon’s manufacturer.  Stane was a good engineer, but he wasn’t an innovator, he wasn’t a creator.  Without Tony’s innovation SI wouldn’t be the leader of the pack for weapons and all those shady deals Stane had been making, they would all go to other suppliers and Stane’s private source of income would dry up in five years. 

And Stane would do anything to keep that from happening.  This little dinner tonight was the older man’s most recent attempt to lure Tony back into the fold.  And Tony was going to take advantage of it. 

The AI’s tone shifted.  “Testing is complete.  The trackers are fully operational and will withstand gastric acid and other components of the human digestive system for just over 34 days. “

His smile sharpened and had teeth. The change of topic cleared the fog that wanted to settle into his brain.   At the heart of it all wasn’t Stane the biggest most immediate threat?

The Soldier had killed his parents.  But the Soldier had been a weapon.  The hand on the trigger had been Hydra.  Something his father had done, something that he had been working on had pushed them into taking action.

The only one close enough to know and to report: Stane.

And of course the man was also the biggest thorn in Tony’s side, he was the one whispering in the father’s ear all the while trying to sooth the son.

He was too far entrenched, had too many allies and power to just disappear.  To get Stane out would mean a fight or a hell of a lot of evidence.

A fight, Tony wanted to avoid if possible.

So that meant evidence.

While Tony hesitated to release things for sale, waffled on the idea of too much innovation too quickly he was also a realist.

A realist with a thousand strikes against him and one that would not forgo any advantage.

Current trackers and surveillance wouldn’t work; Stane was too damn paranoid for that.  But these little babies and maybe slightly, just slightly larger version for the man’s car Tony would make later, good luck with find them and better luck trying to figure out what they were.

As for the signal themselves, they were on a frequency that wouldn’t be detectable for another 5 years. 

“Sir, Ms McKinnon would like to know if you are planning on coming up anytime soon.”

His smile settled back into something fond when he looked at the speaker on his desk. No subtly at all and he wasn’t missing it at all, right?

“Tell her I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

His new cook had taken things in stride.  From the house systems to Tony himself she hadn’t blinked or balked at any of it.  She’d patched up war wounds from equipment and metal with same equinity that she gave to sending dinner down to his workshop. 

On the minus side she stood firmly with the other ladies about the house rules.

Slipping the little trackers into a case he let the smile escape that he could never show around the older woman.  Her house rules dovetailed nicely with Dr. Buchanan’s.

Just here version was more blunt and straight forward.

Like the rules on eating.

_“If I am making food for you I expect you to eat it.  Barring an emergency of course.”_

There were rules about sleeping.

_“Not in your workshop like a leper in a cave.”_

 And rules about missing meals,

_“One okay, two not good, three and Ethan will be pulling you out of your chair.”_

 His muscles pulled and joints protested climbing the stairs and he was a little grateful that it was just stiffness from his long hours in one position. 

“Remind me J to put in an elevator on of these days.”

“Yes Sir.”

At the kitchen Tony debated the possibility he could sneak up into his room.  A quick glance showed Moira at the stove her back to the basement door.  It was theoretically possible for him to slip through, but he also saw that flash of blond gathering up linens and plates.

So no.

The last step and the cook didn’t even turn around.

“Good afternoon Mr. Stark.” 

“Moira.”

He eyed the rolls cooling on the rack and the dishes waiting to go into the oven.

“I’m glad to see that I didn’t need Eilian to rouse you out of the basement after all.”

It wasn’t fear; of course he didn’t fear his own cook.  Tony did have a healthy respect for a woman pushing the wrong side of sixty that still could heft twenty five pound bags of flour like they were nothing.  And the eyes on the back her head, he was still trying to figure that out.

“That was once.” He muttered taking a chance and snagging a roll.

“That was twice not counting the time you were unconscious on the floor since that was before my time.” The wooden spoon banged the edge of the pot she was stirring with a boom.

 “Mr. Stane will be here at 630. Dinner is at 730.”

He was paying attention really, but the smells. Bread was cooling on racks.  Something roasted in the oven adding a delicious aroma to the air that already had his mouth watering.  “And the dining room?”

Any dinner with Stane meant the formal shit. Howard too, if the bastard ever decided to get off his high horse.  Maria, she would rather sit in the kitchen for dinner trying to coax either the recipes or a promise from Moira to help with the next charity event. 

“Eilian is finished setting it now.”

“Eilian is done setting it thank you.” The girl in question walked in.  He frowned at the slight hitch to her step. A limp she hadn’t had this morning.   Tony had skipped the practice, just did the run before heading down to the basement.  He added it to his mental list of things to ask Donovan when he returned.  Which now that Tony thought about it…

 “Ethan’s back.” Eilian reported shoving the loose curls out of her face before getting started on her next task.   He watched the way she started mixing ingredients never one bothering to check a recipe.  The confident air said she knew what she was doing; the levels of folding, cutting and drizzling all said a very complex recipe. 

“Left the file for you.” She gestured with the spoon she was using to a manila folder on the breakfront. 

“What’s that?” he asked eyeing the chocolate while his stomach rumbled. 

“Torte.” She said with smirk and mimed licking the spoon.  Maybe being on good terms with your pastry chef had some benefits.

He nodded, while hefting up the folder. It was thicker than Tony had been expecting, a lot thicker. 

He curled up in a kitchen chair with a relative amount of clear space in front of it.   He’d learned early that Ethan and Eilian had a rapport.  It reminded him too much of Clint and Natasha’s bloody partnership to really look deep, not yet but even the surface of it told him plenty.  It told his gut that there was no point in pretending they weren’t a unit…a team.

Call it a test run, Aunt Peggy had vouched for them; Tony tapped his fingers on the file.  So he had taken a chance.   Some of it was to see if the man was what the file said.  Another part was to see just how high the surveillance on Tony’s tiny little household really was. 

He’d been clear, excruciatingly clear as to what he wanted.  Donovan had listed and produced private investigator’s license for several states, and had contacts is almost all the rest.  This was something Tony couldn’t do, something he had no training or really time to do.

So he took a chance, a really big one.  And hope he wasn’t being burned.

Tony had laid it all out and Ethan had listened.  The man scribbled note after note.  He paid attention while Tony talked never one interrupting.  Every scrap of information, every detail that Tony remembered hearing about. Tony even dredged up those choice little tidbits that he’d managed to hear directly from the source.

Anything and everything that Tony had once investigated about Carson’s Carnival of Traveling Wonders and one Clinton Francis Barton.

The only thing Tony kept to himself was the why.  He never lied, never deflected.  And he’d expected that to be the very first question Ethan or Eilian asked.

It hadn’t happened.  Instead he’d been subjected to one of the most intense and unapologetic appraisals by two pairs of eyes before the two had just looked at each other.  When Eilian had just shrugged, then and only then did Ethan start asking questions about how this information was going to be used and what exactly Ethan’s limits were.

In some manner some of Tony’s own questions had answered.  This was no blind follower. No, there was too much intelligence in those questions.  The man knew limits too; there was not an ill-advised question, no subtle probing to find out Tony’s motives.

He’d experienced that weird mix before, the one and only time Tony had ever asked Natasha for a favor.  She could go where he couldn’t and get the information he needed.  He hadn’t regretted getting the information and tried not to regret having to ask.  But she hadn’t needed to know why he wanted it.  All she needed was an assurance of how Tony was going to use it.  It said things about the other man that the engineer wasn’t sure he was ready to know.  Maybe later if, or rather when Tony needed to start sending feelers into the darker shadows.  Maybe.

Tony hadn’t known why Clint didn’t talk much about his time in the Circus.  Tony had burned with curiosity about it until the first time someone else had asked and been shut down in one of the coldest and most brutal method Tony had ever seen out of the archer.

Now just looking at the summary he knew.  Tony had known the basics of course.  Abusive, alcoholic father killed himself and Clint’s mother in a car accident when Clint was six.  They did the state home thing for a while before running away to join a circus.

The home would be another point to look at, later.  Right now it was Carson’s that had Tony’s fully and undivided attention right now.

Everything was fine, it was almost idyllic.  If you only looked at the surface. 

Clint had a brother, just another thing that Tony had never know.  Barney, and who the hell did that to a child, older by two years.  The elder Barton worked as a stage hand while Clint, yeah there was the brash bastard Tony though looking at the promotional proofs.  There was the Amazing Hawkeye,  master marksman who never missed. 

Look a little further in, dig a little deeper and you could see the first trail of sludge and muck under the surface glimmer.

Every fault and every vice was laid out.  All the sins exposed to the light.  Some minor things, like a couple act misreporting their takes and another stealing from the circus itself.  There was even a possible thievery ring being rung out of one of the trailers.  But Tony didn’t care about those.

He cared about all the signs and evidence that Ethan had gathered, every rumor every tick that spelled out too crystal clear the amount of abuse and neglect suffered by anyone not old enough, not strong enough or confident enough to fight back.

These were just rumor though; the file contained enough evidence and details to have the place shut down.  No sensitivities were spared in these pages.  Tony’s stomach twisted and churned when he found the final photos. This weren’t the professional stills, no these were candid and frank photos of a much younger Hawkeye than Tony had ever seen.    He wasn’t as muscular as he would become, but he was still more than most boys his age. 

Tony had once thought it was SHIELD and the rumored years that Clint had spent as a mercenary that had given the man that thousand yard start and the darkness in his eyes.  Somehow Ethan had taken the pictures when Clint hadn’t seen him had thought he was alone.  These were color pictures that highlighted every bruise and every scar.  Tony traced the image of the skinny frame and how the younger man had hunched over himself once the costume was off, and once the crowds were gone.   

Tony would have believed the words without the pictures, he wanted to be able to unsee this, to erase it.  But he couldn’t.

The recommendation section was terse and brief.  A copy of all the evidence had been left with the local police.  Tony concurred heartily.  He also agreed with the other man’s sentiment that the robbery and theft rings would get more traction than the child abuse.

As for Clint, Ethan had suggested approaching the kid and soon.  He admitted to being tempted, very tempted to do it right then but things were on edge enough at the place that any sort of offer might not be taken the right way.

Tony didn’t like it, but the man wasn’t wrong.  After the damn dinner they’d sit down and deal with it.  Brainstorm out ideas and methods. 

Next, was a list of names. Tony memorized those.  The very explicit recommendations on just what to do with every person that had willfully ignored or turned a blind eye to this was something that Tony highly approved of.   And if some of them were a little graphic and very illegal Tony didn’t mind that at all.

 “What do you think?” Tony asked watching Eilian put the final touches on the pastry confection.   She already knew, had already read this.  Tony recognize a few turns of phrase in the recommendations from the woman’s own writing.

When she looked up he saw the cold rage in her eyes and didn’t flinch. No he met it with his own anger.

“Those groups are too insular for the police or Children’s services to do much.  They will just pack up and move to the next jurisdiction.” She exhaled letting it leech out of her expression. 

Then she turned back to her work.  One last flick of her wrist and it was decorated better than he’d seen in professional bakeries.  And yet somehow managed to leave a nice coating of dark chocolate mousse on both spatula and spoon.

He took the spoon from her giving it a careful taste as she added the whipped cream topping and the sprinkling of chocolate curls.

It was only when Eilian had finished that she snagged a few of the curls handing one over.  She popped the other into her mouth with a feral grin.

 “I saw that.” Even though the woman’s back was turned. 

“Mr. Stark needs to eat too.”  Eilian pouted back handing over a few more curls.  He’d told them all, several times a day…damn it.  

He sighed this wasn’t going to go away he realized.  ‘Mr. Stark’ was just another tweak, another play jab under the veneer of polite professionalism.

 “Ms. Rayne.” He snapped back and then almost melted in his seat tasting the dark chocolate.  Had he even eaten lunch?

“Yes you ate lunch.” She grinned.  “And not when we’ve got company comin’.”   Wonderful.

“I pay your salary you know.” He teased right back

Eilian’s eyes widened in mock surprise. “I get paid?” then the expression turned serious.  “We’ll argue this on payday.”

That pulled him up short. “Wait what?”

But she was already out the door.

“What the fuck?”

“Language.” Moira said still without turning.

“What is it with anyone that lived through the ‘40s?  Is this something that you just do?  Anytime anyone curses it’s like a reflex?”

“Only in mixed company.”

“Seriously?”

Now she did turn.  “Mr. Stark, Tony.” Moira said gravely like she was imparting a deep secret.  “If someone was an adult during the War then they were kids during the depression.”  She crossed her arms over her chest.  “It may come as a surprise, but there were swearwords back then.” She gave him a considering look. “And sex. So if it wasn’t a preacher saying ‘language’…” She let the obvious statement trail off. 

He just stared at her as the implications sank in.  “That asshole was fucking with me?” He couldn’t decide if he was appalled or amused.

~*~

 

The clock hands have barely moved, twenty minutes nothing more and Tony already wished fervently and desperately for a drink.

With the center leaves taken out the antique oak monstrosity could still easily seat six, but it is a sick parody of intimate dining when it is just the two of them. 

Tony didn’t say word, not with his voice or body language about how absurd it is for two people; a sick parody of an intimate dinner that had Tony’s stomach rolling even before taking into consideration who sat at the other end.

Tony wanted to include someone anyone really.  He had really wanted to invite Peggy, dear god how he’d wanted to. Stane had waved off any such suggestion with the declaration of confidential business matters.  Neither mentioned pulling Howard into this.  According to Stane, Howard was still furious with Tony’s “betrayal”. Tony kept his mouth shut around what Edwin Jarvis had to say on the subject and continued to be so excited to have his godfather’s undivided attention.

Lucky him.

“So any plans to get your new project up and going soon?” Obie asked taking a sip from his wine goblet.  “Or are you going back to school?”

It was tempting to play the brat, to whine and moan about responsibility something he wouldn’t have hesitated to use as his go to deflection a year ago whenever someone tried to discuss business with him.

Nope, Tony slapped on PR smile #2, that confident grin with a hint of shared trust.  “I can always go back once I get things up and running.”  He shrugged.  “I may do both.  A few presentations and the review board and I have another Ph.D.”

That flash of surprised on Stane’s face was fleeting, and Tony hid his smirk. No one had known; no one had paid attention even the first time.  Everyone always assumed that the genius had graduated with a Bachelor’s at nope, all those classes had been finished his first year.  Stane sat down his glass and fixed Tony with a look that used to have him rolling his eyes.

“I’m worried about you Tony.” Here came the intimate voice, all soft and smooth tones, not chiding but as if he was sharing a confidence.

Taking a sip of his own glass Tony mentally shifted gears, he had to stay on top of this.  Twenty years of his life he had been conditioned, and that was the right word, to think of this man as his father figure, his benevolent uncle.  He just had to keep in mind the truth behind all of it.  Just an elaborate chess game and Stane’s only goal was money and power.

_/” I ordered the hit on you; I was worried that I was killing the golden goose.”/_

“I’m a little confused by that Obie.  I thought you were worried about me when I was drinking and partying.” Tony said taking another drink before putting the glass down. It looked like a nice Chardonnay, tasted like one of the more expensive labels, and without a single drop of alcohol in the entire bottle.  His life sucked.

“That’s the point Tony.  You don’t do any of that anymore.  No one has seen you get drunk, not that I’m advocating that.  But you haven’t been out with any of your friends.  A few of them have even reached out to me to make sure you were okay.”

“Surprised they haven’t tried to call me.” He pouted a little, but it was all show. Tony could probably guess just which “friends” had reached out to Stane, all the ones that Stane had been paying to keep the young genius distracted and those that had been spying on him.

“When they weren’t sure if you were up to company?” Stane continued.  “The point is that ever since the kidnapping you haven't been the same.”

Tony could hear the tone, and knew what was coming next.

“It’s not like this was your first one Tony.  You’ve been through this before.” Now the tone was coaxing; gently pushing Tony to unburden himself to dear old uncle Obie.

Of course Lydia had been right, Stane was fishing.  ‘Why’ became the big question.  Tony had assumed that Howard would have told Obie all the details everything about the kidnapping and Tony’s injuries.  But then he remembered that Howard hadn’t know, hell his Mother hadn’t known.

All Stane really knew was that Tony was kidnapped, injured and had changed his behavior.  A plus B equals C in a logical world.  

Funny thing about assumptions like that.

So to Stane something about the kidnapping had affected Tony to such an extent that it changed him. 

That didn’t explain why the business man wanted access to Tony’s medical files.

“It wasn’t the kidnapping Obie.” Tony was getting very tired of the subtle questions and the pushing. “Rather it wasn’t just the kidnapping.”  Steve had proven more than once you can lie when you tell the truth.

“Then what is it?  You are different now. People are going to notice. “ 

“People, you mean the media, like I give a damn about them.  So they lose their favorite drunk socialite. It’s time I grew up; I thought you of all people would understand that.”

“I can understand the need to grow up.  And I’m not upset by it.”

Tony didn’t react to the lie.  Having the younger Stark just as inattentive and distracted as the elder had always been a focus of Stane’s.

“But when the first thing you decide to do is split from the foundation of support to rush out on your own.  That’s not being grown up Tony, that’s being reckless.”

In the normal course of things Stane’s opinion might, just might, have held water. 

“Or it’s a less self-destructive rebellion against dear old dad.”  Tony’s smile this time was all teeth.

The older man sighed and rubbed the balding spot on his head.  “Of course.” Stane said like it answered all the questions.  “You and your father, Tony he’s trying, you have to know that.”

“I understand Obie, really.  But this last time? No, I’m done with it.”  Forty five years done with it. 

“That isn’t a reason to turn your back on business, on your legacy.”

That chiding tone hit the target.  He opened his mouth to snarl back, but the door to the kitchen opened and Eilian stepped out carrying the desert tray.

Tony closed his mouth with a click.  Eilian who had be very grateful not to have to deal with Stane and happiest to be plating and cleaning and the very same woman he had seen not ten minutes ago in jeans and a t-shirt.  Now in a black pencil skirt with a white dress shirt and vest with her hair in a tumble of curls trailing down her back. 

“Dark chocolate torte with raspberries.” She announced in a husky voice that almost had Tony swallowing his tongue. A flicker of a glance at Stane and Tony knew she was hitting the right, or maybe wrong buttons.  The business man’s gaze was fastened on her with barely hidden hunger. She wasn’t being seductive, she wasn’t flirting.  Even her clothes only suggested curves and didn’t highlight them.

And she didn’t linger, placed the desert in front of Tony as the host.  Added the coffee cups and swept away the dinner plates and was gone.

“Your maid?” Stane asked with a little raise to his eyebrow.

“Assistant.”  He said carefully slicing the tort and not looking at the sprinkled shavings. “She helps with things around the house for Mrs. McKinnon on occasion. “

“I bet she does.”

He was so going to have a chat with her after this.

He really, really wanted a drink.

“I can understand, but your father?  He’s under a lot of pressure right now.  You going off on your own direction leaving no clear successor for SI, that’s not reassuring to the board.”  And it takes Tony a second to realize that Stane is talking about Tony’s behavior not his assistant.

Howard is under a lot of pressure. He’s busy at the office. He had a deadline.  All the excuses Tony has ever heard of why it was just Maria or Jarvis or Peggy attending a school event or not available when Tony was actually home.

“So what’s the pitch?  Dad should set you up.  You’d be fine as the successor.” 

Stane actually preens a little.  “I could run it, but without a genius brain there coming up with the next new idea what would the point be?”

And that was the point, one that Tony had really wondered if Stane lost sight of…later or if Tony was just that big of a pain in the ass.

“The point is son that we do need you.  We need you in the trenches getting the R&D department moving forward, giving them a leadership I don’t have the chops for and your father can’t.”

Tony leaned back in his chair sipping at the cup of coffee thinking.  There are too many possible ways this can go.  “I am not doing the weapons systems Obie.”

“We need more help on the guidance than the weapons. This new GPS thing the military is setting up is wrecking some havoc with the old systems.”

Another drink and he didn’t roll his eyes.  There is an end game here he had to keep it in sight. 

“I’ll take a look at the computer systems.  I won’t do anything with the aerodynamic or the payloads, but the computers I will help with.”  Stane will only see it as splitting hairs, and Tony’s okay with that. 

“I’m willing to work with SI not for SI.  Call me an independent contractor, troubleshooter, or consultant I don’t care.  I’ll sign all the confidentiality agreements you need, but I not under SI control.  All my designs will be under my name, not the company.  I will license them out to SI but I retain control.”

“That’s not how the business works.”  Stand chided shaking a fork at him. “I need you a hundred percent on board with this.”

“Nope.” He popped the p.  “You need me.  I don’t need you or SI.  I’m doing you a favor so it’s on my terms or you can find yourself another genius engineer with a specialty in computers.  I’ll work part time for you and the rest of my time with my own company.”

He could see it in the man’s eyes Stane thinks he can get Tony on the rope.  But this was one of things that he and Rian spent ages working out.

“And do you have a name for this “company” of yours?”

There is a sneer in Stane’s words that made Tony bristle back.

“Stark Resilient.”

Two hours, two more annoying hours spent with putting up with Stane’s subtle questions and innuendos.  The questions were no longer about Tony’s change of attitude or his decisions.  Nope, they were tiny little prying questions about his relationship with his “assistant”. 

He’s a little grateful for that timely intervention but by the time they’ve said their good byes and Tony’s gotten Stane out the damn door he’s riding the edge of his anger.

The living room couch had never looked so good though and so does the bottle of scotch.  But he was being a good boy.  He detoured back into the dining room picking up the last of the desert dishes and finally allowed himself a grin that the torte is pretty much gone. And Tony only had one piece.

His ire spiked again though when he sees Eilian scrubbing the last of the dinner dishes. He took a look around; the kitchen was already sparkling clean and surprisingly empty.  They must have convinced Moira to head to bed and Ethan looked like he hadn’t slept in the two days he’d been gone.

He thought about it long and hard, the ghost of old conversations replaying before his eyes.

/ _“What the hell was that Stark?” Roger’s voice snarled out of the comm.  Tony just rolled his eyes and continued slaloming through the streets._

_“It’s called tag.  Didn’t have that back in the Stone Age?” He can’t help it really it’s too much fun to wind the Capsicle up._

_“We had a plan Stark.” Now ‘Captain America is disappointed in you’ voice._

_“We also had civilians in the line of fire Cap.”_

_He can hear the frustrated sigh and almost picture the blond rubbing at his temples._

_“Two seconds to say something.” /_

And now he can either say nothing or….something.  Hypocrite was never his favorite color.  Fuck it, he got some metal to pound out, right now he’s going to just vent.

“So what’s your secret?”  He made a show of putting down the dishes.

She just cocked an eyebrow at him but the smirk says she knows exactly what he’s doing.

“Those curves, I mean I’ve seen you in workout gear and but that outfit?  Stane couldn’t keep his eyes off you.”   His tone had a hard and sharp edge. Not vicious, no this was protective.

She tosses the sponge in the sink and leans against the counter with a look. 

“That was the point Mr. Stark.”  She says with a tone that was just shy of patronizing.  And to be fair he did start it with the curves crack.  “I wanted his attention focused on me, even for that little bit.”

“We talked about this.  Stane is dangerous. We all agreed on this.”

“Yes.”

“So why did you do it?”

“As a distraction.” She said confusing the hell out of him.

“I didn’t need a distraction.”

“Ethan did.”

It hit him then, the dining room windows look out on the drive way, where Stane’s car is parked. 

“You didn’t.”

But her smile said she absolutely did.

“What did you do?” He can’t tip his hand, not right now. 

She hands him a piece of paper.  He recognizes a frequency when he sees one. 

For a moment anger warred with glee.  And he couldn’t say a word. 

Then he breathed out a breath. “How hidden?”  He had to know for sure.  This was a major step ahead of where he had hoped to be.  Stane had several cars, but for when he wanted push that rich asshole image this was his go to car. 

“Very.”  There were so many people that would want to find out Stane’s dirty little secrets.  “It will record data and the next time he comes over we retrieve it.” 

The whole thing was Insanely perfect and deviously simple.  Most bugs and trackers get found because they are transmitting.

Another breath.  “You could have said something.” He finally managed between his teeth.  Because you know what he could.

“No time.” She said.  “I didn’t know Ethan had any of these left.” She said with a shrug.

He listens to her footsteps retreat up the stairs.  He holds on it until even the echo is gone. 

And he laughed at the bitter, bitter irony.

He didn’t head up.  Not right now.  He was tired, but too much energy ran through him now.  He’ll set a timer for an hour, or two…three at the outset.

He needed a little him time.  Just something to help put his perspective back where it should be.  It’s tempting so very tempting to just live this life, to be the person he’d set himself up.  But he can’t allow himself a minute to forget the stakes he playing for this time.

He only paused a moment when he hit the shop to lock the door and close the blind. It wasn’t new or suspicious.  He’s done it before when he’s had a project that was confidential or dangerous.  It’s a little disconcerting to walk through it all.  The basement is good sized but it’s not Manhattan or Malibu. 

There is another door, solid steel and no windows. Here was the fabrication area.  It too is so much smaller than he’s used to dealing with.  He had to leave space for the household things, the washers and dryers and the hvac.  That doesn’t leave a lot of space no matter what anyone tries to tell you.  With a fond caress he passes JARVIS’s initial servers tucked in an air conditioned space that started life as a wine cellar.   Every available space is filled with equipment from various welding torches to cutters and other metal working tools.  Anything not filled with it has racks of parts and tools.  Others house plugs and cords.

“Jarvis, open the hatch. Authorization Star Spangled Man with a Plan.” 

“Access Granted Sir.”

Tony smiled when one of the racks of plugs and cords moves back and to the side.  It shouldn’t work, not with the amount of things on there.  No scans will pick it up, nothing to give this away.  Some of it was him, the reinforcing and the electronics.  But for the most part he had to tip his hat to dear old Howard.  The door had been hidden both in the way it had looked like just another concrete wall, and piled high with discarded detritus.

And a small part wondered if Howard even remembered or cared that this was here.  Doubtful, not how the stairs had been thick with dust and even corrosion.

This place extended beyond the footprint of the house.  How it had gone unnoticed and unreported Tony wasn’t sure. He had tried looking for it, scanning outside, with anything he could get his hands on.  Hints, suggestions, and shadows were all he found, nothing to give it away really.  Not the sub-basement and certainly not the underground tunnels. He had done a lot to get rid of what little pieces hinted at the existence, no matter how small.  Taking paranoia to a new level he managed to devise little baffles and screens so that any scanners up to and including ground penetrating radar would only reflect what he wanted it to.

There were no emissions, no power signatures.  The lights currently were chemical,  they cast their green tinged light over all the scaffolding all the wires looping down.  He’d fix that too, first on his list.

Security was paramount.  There could be no clues no suggestions.  There were no keyholes or scanners to be seen.  JARVIS was and always would be the first and best defense.  But even without the AI even the spy twins would have a hell of time figuring out this was here much less how to get in.  Switches, keypads and code, even in the worst case emergency Tony could get in the stairwell in less than a minute. 

Metal frames stood ready open and waiting for the wires and circuit to be added.  Replicating the alloy with the tools on hand had been a complete bitch.  He could really work on it in stolen hours, sneaking down from his room when JARVIS reported the rest of the house was either out or sleeping.  Here where the light was the strongest white boards and Plexiglas sheets hung covered in notes and tag with sheets of notes.   Technology was his mistress, his god.  He would never give up an inch of it.  Here and now he didn’t have to worry about what not to say.  He didn’t worry about who was listening or plotting. Here he could immerse himself in the familiar and the comfort.

“How are the transmitters working J?” he asks pausing only to trail a finger over this table or that piece. 

“Mr. Stane ingested five transmitters, each is functioning nominally.”

Tony breathes a little easier.  One thing off his plate.

“And the link with the satellite?”

“The way you designed the mechanisms for the transmission of the pulses ensures that the link registers as part of the maintenance and telemetry systems.”

Good to know that he hadn’t forgotten how the damn things worked.  Tony shouldn’t have really, they were his own designs.  The military had done just enough modification to make him concerned.  But he needed the GPS stations; it was the perfect way to keep track of Stane’s movement.

This had been Howard Stark’s starting point, his monument to playing in the big leagues.  Here could have been Tony safe haven, his fortress. an attempt at safety. No this was going to be his launching point.


	10. Chapter 9: I looked for a sign/ With flames in my hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things don't always make sense. Even if you are a genius.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I mentioned this at the beginning or at least hope I did, but for most Marvel characters I am looking at sticking to MCU materials.  
> With the most implying that there would be some I wouldn't be.  
> Here is the first of those. (See end notes for more of why)
> 
> And again only kinda sorta beta so please if you see something glaring send me a note.  
> Also Marvel owns the Avengers.

**Chapter 9 – I looked for a sign /With flames in my hands**

 

06/25/1990

Staring down at the contract in front of him Tony was tempted to just walk out.  Good old Obie had been true to his word, some of them anyway.  Howard had backed down.  But this contract?  This wasn’t Howard, this was Stane through and through.

Looking at it made Tony’s skin crawl.  He had drawn a line and this looked like a retreat.

Looked.

He had to keep that in mind.

“Sign it,” Stane cajoled, but Tony ignored it and continued reading.

Days like this he really missed Pepper.  He missed her gentle patience and her steel spine.  She knew he never signed anything without reading it.  Oh how she would tease him about it.  But she knew it, knew that the quick rifling through a stack was deceptive.  He had seen every word, every clause.  When he handed him something he didn’t have to look for the pitfalls and the traps.  Pepper had been just as good, if not better at seeing those.

 “Don’t rush me Obie.”  He didn’t bother to add the ‘or I’ll walk’ it was in his tone.  The older man was smart enough to know that the genius was dead serious.

“I’m still to attend all the gala and investors parties?”  He didn’t bother to hide his wince.  Sure put the performing monkey… fuck.

“As a representatives of SI so no pushing your own company.”

“Really we’re being that petty?”

“Your father…” Stane starts but then just shrugged.

“I’ll attend half, that’s what 6 a year these days?”

“I’ll make the amendment.” 

“We’ll make it before I’ll sign this.”

“Anything else?”  Now came the annoyance and Tony couldn’t help but savor it just a little.

“Patents and Licensing,” He said putting the pen down away from the papers.  “They’re not in here.”

“We can make it an oral modification.”  Obie soothed, pushing the pen back towards Tony.

Tony really wanted to know if Stane thought that would slip by unnoticed.  He raised an eyebrow.  “When the contract explicitly says that all intellectual property produced belongs to SI?”

Hands on the desk Tony stood up and headed towards the door.  Once he cared about SI, about his father’s approval and his legacy.  Now he didn’t know what to think or even feel, not about his father and not about SI.  But Obie, oh Tony knew full well how he felt about Stane.

“Tony.”  Obie’s tone was soft and coaxing, the go to one when he’s trying to soothe Tony out of snit or to see his way. “You have to understand the position we’re in.”

“I do, whether you see it or not.”  Tony hold up a hand before the next attempt at this.  “I’m not giving you, Howard or the damn lawyers any room on this.”

“Why is this so damn important?  You’ve always wanted to work with your father. What changed?”

Years of therapy, the tempting answer sat on his tongue.  Tony looked at the other man. The old family friend pose invited confidences, and once a younger less experienced man would have spilled it all. 

All Tony could think about, could picture was the man that pulled out his heart.

Changes, those were the bone that Stane would never let go.  Tony had been careless, had been too caught up in getting his feet under him to disguise it all.  And he hadn’t wanted to.  Something he would, but others. Those hadn’t been important, not with this time table.  Now Tony had to reap the costs.

So he went with the easy answer, a true answer but not the whole answer.

 “I want something that is mine, foundation to skyline mine.  You know that feeling right?” He said thinking of all the arguments and all the fights with just the board.  When the other man nodded he continued.  “SI will never be mine, not wholly.  I want to see just how far I can go, how high I can reach.”

The chair creaked when the older man sat back down.  “I’m a little surprised at that actually given your behavior in school.”

“Did you expect me to spend my time drinking and carousing? “

“You should have time to be young, to relax and enjoy things.”

There was forty five years of that thanks.

“But Obie I am enjoying this.” And Tony wasn’t lying at all.

It takes more time, but they get the changes and Obie has to wait while Tony reviews each and every line.  “There we go.”

“Good.  You are going to need an assistant.”  Obie says before the ink is even dry.  “Someone to handle the day to day things and a contact point when you are not available.”

“Sounds useful.”   Tony knew who he wanted, who he needed.  But Pepper?  She’d be college or something.  Maybe – hopefully- one day.  

 “Good to see you are being reasonable about this.”

“Obie I’m always reasonable.”  Tony quipped back with just the right about of smirk on his face.  He’d gotten what he wanted so it was time to pay the piper or at least see what Stane wanted.  It was always give and take with that man.

And Obie didn’t disappoint.  He handed over a stack of folders.  Tony’s prepared for this, knew this was coming and steeled himself to take them from the man’s hand.

“These are applicants for the PA position.”

“SI Assistant, I have a personal assistant.” Tony correct, again.

“I noticed.”  Tony just rolled his eyes at the droll tone and the leer.  “That being said you need someone that has the background to handle things in a corporate environment.”

If the jibe was meant to get a reaction he didn’t give it one other than to roll his eyes. 

Flipping through employment data, backgrounds and pictures most are just a blur of faces to him until one caught his eyes.  A testament to his self-control,  he didn’t flinch, didn’t slow and never even paused.

On autopilot he keeps looking, taking the same about of time with each one.   “You guys keep telling me I don’t know everything so,” he hands them back.  “You pick one.”

“It would be best if you do it Tony.” 

He had to get out of here.  He can feel his heart starting to pick up the pace.

“Really this is about SI.  So pick the person that will be able to balance working for me and still focused on the company.”

“That’s…especially mature of you.”

He just shrugs.  “If they don’t work out then I’ll send them back to HR.”  It’s willpower, sheer unadulterated willpower that kept his expression the same and his breath even.  Cold sweat beaded on his back and the spots danced at the edge of his vision.

“Just introduce them say Wednesday?”  He made a show of checking his watch and allowing a frown. “We took a little longer than I was expecting.”  This time when he stands it’s still friendly and approachable.  “I’ve got another meeting.”

“Of course”.

It was a testament to his acting that no one stopped him on the way out.  No one twigged to the fact that his feet are walking and his actions were automated.  Winding his way out of the building the only thing going through his mind was “just a few more minutes”.

Ethan had the door open the second Tony stepped out of the building.  There was no greeting, no banter.  

Thank god.

 “Home.” He manages before the edges become the picture.  He caught the flash of a concerned look.  Never had he been more grateful when there were no questions.  Tony didn’t see any of the other man’s reaction but he heard the door open and close and felt the car start forward.

 Letting his head rest against the tinted window Tony stopped trying to fight.  He just let the memories overtake him.

_/”Will that be all, Mr. Stark?” The green eyes are cold and the smirk is cutting._

_“No.” he says still entranced by the fall of red hair and something about her._

_“Yes, that will be all, Ms. Rushman. Thank you very much.” Pepper just sighs._

_When the other woman leaves he has to say it._

_“I want one.”/_

_/  “I'm surprised you can keep your mouth shut.”_

_“God, you're good. You are mind-blowingly close to this. How do you do it? You're a triple impostor, I've never seen anything like it. Is there anything real about you? Do you even speak Latin?”_

_“Fallaces sunt rerum species.”/_

_/”Iron Man would be a useful addition to the Avengers Initiative, but Tony Stark is not recommended.”_ /

SI to manor took two hours.  Shivering he was able to pull himself up and out only to blink uncertainly seeing the trees pass by his window.  Shivering he pulled himself together.  He couldn’t look, couldn’t bear to see the expression on Donovan’s face.  When Tony’s door open’s he slid out, wrapping his arms around his chest.

He stumbled once, but a strong hand cupped his arm keeping him steady.  Not grabbing, not pulling, just a support offered without expectation.

His head was full of things, too full to really notice the steps, but he managed. 

Probabilities and impossibilities tore at his focus at his certainty.

He felt the colder air, smelled the scent of baking and let a little of the tension slip away.  The kitchen, his kitchen he was safe here.

Slender hands took over now.  Tony flinched a little because those were not Jarvis’s.  He barely registered Eilian’s firm tones.  She wasn’t talking to him.  No, a plate was shoved in his hands as was a bottle of water.  Then those same hands helped him to the basement.

All the while his mind swirled trying to line up pieces and probabilities, to make some certainty out of impossibilities.

Wednesday that’s his deadline.  He needed to know, needed some perspective. Obadiah Stane managed to pull off the impossible and Tony needed to know how. 

He just can’t wrap his brain around it, it so absurd. Discounting Steve’s…situation, Bruce had been the eldest, with Tony next in line.  He finished the sandwich before the doors on the workshop closed behind him.

“J, see if you can slip into SI servers.  I want all you can get on one Natalie Rushman.” He’s already pulled up some of the files.  On another monitor the SI HR data starts to appear.

 “Displaying data.”

Nothing made sense.  This was twenty years before the battle of Manhattan.  He’d read the leaked files, Natasha Romanov, or Natalia Romanova Born in 1984.  She would be six.

 “J, Does that look like a six year old to you?”

“SI files indicate that Ms. Rushman has a DOB of November 22, 1965.  

Natasha had been an orphan, raised in the Red Room.  There were no convenient relatives. 

Stane was a business man. The man had ties to Hydra yes.  Thin ephemeral ties at best and nothing that would have produced this.

She was six.

/ “Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract, this does not mean that we...”

“I'm sorry Nick, what were you lying?”/

Someone who looked like her, using that name, and at Stark Industries? One is chance, two is coincidence and three is…something else.

/ _"I'm not the one that needs to watch their back."/_

He needed more on the Red Room. He had so little. Something that Natasha had let slip.  Bits and piece teased out of the Project Insight idiocy.

Peggy, she had some too from her dealing against the Soviet group.  Something to deal with later, when he felt a little more in control and wouldn’t raise his aunt’s suspicious or even worse her curiosity.

But from those fragments he could make some logical suppositions.

One, Peggy had dealt with a strong capable agency in late 1940 and 1950s. They had to have been around earlier than that to get fully indoctrinated and trained agents onto the field.

The Red Room was another name for the Black Widow program.  A name changed he’d have to track down just to make sure, but a point he was fairly certain of.  Just like the SSR became SHIELD.

Wasn’t that nice?

A Soviet program and the USSR was pretty much a no go.  To all those who paid attention the superpower had died as an effective organization years ago.  The rest of the world was just catching up.

But that still didn’t answer the question of how the hell this was possible. Time travel?

And now this was his life if he was jumping to that as a possible solution. 

/ _“Come to bed Tony.” Pepper coaxed and he looked up from the prototype in front of him._

_“Just a few more things to finish.” He said going back to his work.  Everything ached from his bones and even his eyes.  He could barely focus._

_“You have to sleep Tony.” He felt the coolness of a touch on his overheated skin._

_“I just don’t want to dream.” He admitted leaning into that touch._

_“JARVIS can wake you up from the nightmares.”_

_“It’s not the nightmares” The bitter laugh scorched his throat.  “They suck, but they are better than the dream when I can’t even tell I’m sleeping.” /_

He can’t think down that path, couldn’t let it get as much as a toe hold.  Tony looked back at the monitors, at the picture.

Natasha was the best of the best. A scary assassin for sure, but her true talent wasn’t just in weapons or fighting.  She was the master of infiltration, the Spy. 

He noted the reddish brown hair that drifted down just past her shoulders.  Not curls this time and darkened from the signature color.  A nod towards subtly paired with the dark green eyes.  Still gorgeous, striking and probably just as deadly, but he’s seen her do better change it up until even Clint didn’t know it was her.  This was half assed at best.

“Which means she going for impact not concealment.” He muttered

“It is suggestive that way Sir.”

Tony grinned at his AI’s tone.  Then the smile slide away, he could speculate all day long with this, but he’d get nothing concrete. Human beings were mess creatures constantly defying reason and logic.  Half the time they didn’t respond in predicable ways. 

So go another way.

 “JARVIS.  I wanted you to get me anything you can find on Natalia Romanova, a list of aliases a mile long.  I’ve got them listed under File Alpha Four.”

“I can see what I can access sir.”

“Most of what you are going to need to look at is going to be in the Russian side of the fence.”

“Unfortunately I will need additional resources to access those materials sir.”

“Oh?”  Does he need more processing power?  The Soviet systems aren’t that great they’ve just managed to pile…

“Few government agencies have started digitizing their demographic information. And with the current difficulties there are very few governmental records online.  I would require hands and feet to be able to accomplish this task.”

“I love this new subroutine J.  Thinking about taking your show on the road?”

“It would be a nice change of pace sir.  I do have access to some university and newspapers we might be able to find data correlating to File Alpha Four.”

JARVIS is the only other person with the least idea of the things in Tony’s head.  All those memories, all those pieces stored safe and sound in JARVIS base code. The AI is the evolving, changing guardian of every scrap of information those spiral bound notebook held.  JARVIS knows the coding, knows it in the foundation of his programing but would never be able to translate it for anyone without Tony’s consent.

“And J while you’re in there, keep an eye out for any reports or articles on anything in Alpha Fourteen.”

 

~*~

06/27/1990

She’s waiting for him when Tony stepped off the elevator bright and early Wednesday morning. Long ago and not so long ago he would have been distracted by the mile-high high heels.  Once upon a time he would have been lured by the cut of her jacket and the way she moved.

o be honest he’s not dead and she was still one of the more attractive women Tony knows… knew.   He also could calculate exactly how much damaged those slender hands could do and list off down to the newton just how much force those long legs dealt.

He was appreciative not stupid. 

He saw it in the angles and proportions, eyes, cheekbones and jaw.  The calculations tick off in his head as they walked together.  This isn’t a family member; this is Romanov in the flesh.  He can’t think on the how and the whys are irrelevant.  He can’t be distracted by them now. 

“Ms. Rushman.” He gives her a nod taking the mail from the inbox.  “Welcome aboard.”  Waving her into his “new” office he doesn’t wince at the heavy décor or the lack of natural light.

And this was an executive’s office.  One that Tony would have had if this whole charade been a real thing.   A contractor rated a cube somewhere in bowels of this hell, if there was such a place.  So just another Stane power play, who the intended recipients of it were didn’t really matter. 

Tony was starring a leading role.

Stane could be using him as a power play against managers and leads, but Tony was certain it was just another way to control him, and if it got results on the lower floors so be it.

“Mr. Stark, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” 

Her hand was warm and firm against his - real enough - when they shook hands.

“So you are my new assistant for Stark Industries.”  Seated in the chair he gave her his full attention. 

“Mr. Stane said that you needed a personal assistant.”  There is a cocked eyebrow when she sat in the chair across the desk.

“I need an assistant for Stark Industries.” He kept his tone pleasant.  This argument wasn’t hers.  “I’m sorry you were caught in Mr. Stane’s error. I’m a contractor not an executive.” 

There was a hook, and maybe it was her’s or it could be Obie’s.  He’ll always give her the benefit of the doubt over Stane.  Tony would give the devil the benefit over Stane.

“I’m only going to be here two or three days a week so I’m going to need someone full time to keep things moving.”

Romanov does have little tells.  Seeing a twitch or a tick, that would be a gold star day.  But this is nothing more than groundwork.

“I see.”

His smile was all teeth. “Good.  If I’m not here you are the go to person.  You will be the one to sort through the stuff that can wait and the things that can’t.  I’m going to need you to ride herd on the calendar, make sure that meetings that absolutely require my presence are on the days I’m in the office.”

He hated the archaic annoyance of a paper calendar.  Here he was not a page into it and it’s full of meetings and other useless crap penciled in, a small mercy, probably by the department secretary.   And a lot of them are on days he won’t be in, even better.

“And if for some reason it can’t be shifted or they need someone from this office at the last minute you will attend.”

“Me?”  It’s an honest question.  All of the meetings are for R&D and she’s not an engineer or a scientist.

He flips open her personnel file.  “You had college sciences right?  No problem, go with your gut. If it looks off then it probably is.  If you aren’t sure then stall until the next time I’m here.” He hoped the smile he gives her is reassuring.  “And if you like it then by all means pass it on up.”

There was a touch apprehension in her eyes now.  “I’m not sure that your department will see it that way.”

And low and behold he caught the spark of something like humor in her eyes hiding behind the mask.

“A whip and chair is really all you need, and a firm understanding of the word ‘No’.” He said with a smile.

“Are we talking about the R&D section or children?” She returned the smile, this one with more humor. 

Tony looked back down at the calendar.  This wasn’t his Natasha.  He had to remember that.

And there was another danger point, taking any emotion that the Black Widow expressed to be genuine.  It’s tempting to fall into the smile and lose track of the game.

“Whips and chairs are illegal for kids; the R&D department is another story.  We’ll leave those to the circus for now.  We can always just threaten their budget.”

And give him a sticker Tony caught a twitch of uncertainty.  It was hard, so very hard not to grin in triumph.  

They work through the schedule, talking about which meetings can be moved and which can’t.

He read through the rest. The meeting with the Malibu office could be shifted a day.  SI will be paying their expenses anyway so an extra day in New York, not a problem.  But look the weapons group wants his input.

“You can attend the one with Jensen and his crew.”  He said when they get to that one.

“I have no background in ordinances.” She arched an eyebrow up at him.

“It’s a power play, not your concern.  I don’t play with the missile tech, Obie knows I won’t but they are still trying to get a foot in the door.  Go to the meeting, tell them thank you but no and shove them out the door. Easy.”

The eyebrow arched higher. “Easy?”

“Simple really.  They’re all assholes in that division.  So I will apologize in advance for that.  I can’t apologize for my gender, because well that would be against the guy code.”

Strangely his babbling relaxed her shoulders a little. He hadn’t even noticed the tension.  “You are not what I was expecting.”  She finally said once the schedule was done for the next month. 

“Oh?”  He sifted through the files left on his desk and sorted through the stack of emergency and urgent. He pulls several including the damn guidance systems.  That will take him five minutes to fix, but he wants to putter around with some ideas.

He waited a long moment before letting _Ms. Rushman_ off the hook.

 “An immature kid with more brains than sense?”  The tone was light and his smile ever so bright. “More interested in drinking and partying than working?"

 She could blush command too, that was interesting, but he won’t tease her for it.  He likes his bits were they were.  “Yes.”

“You can’t believe everything you hear Mr. Rushman.”

“I can see that.” 

There was more to the statement than Tony could parse.  Not that he had the time or privacy to think it through. 

“Good. So,” he takes a glanced at the clock.  We’ve been at this for a couple of hours.  You should have enough to get started on the projections for Next Monday.” 

He slips her a business card, one of his personal ones.  “My contact information should you need to pass on any urgent matters my way. “

“Thank you Mr. Stark.”

He rolls his eyes.  “Please call me Tony. I keep hearing Mr. Stark and wondering when my father came into the room.”

“Of course, Tony.”  Now they are back to their expected roles.

“Great.  I will see you on Monday.”

“Thank you Tony.”  And she was good at reading a polite dismissal.

He kept his nose in the files.  Only when the door closed did he lean back and let out the breath that had lodged in his chest. 

Tony was fairly certain she wasn't here for the kill.  That’s a quick meeting in the dark, or a random pick up at a party.  All that end in him dead of apparent overdose or heart failure. Too bad, so sad all that drinking and drug use. 

No this has the feel of the long game, information.  She burrowed into his organization before for the assessment and the damn palladium issue. 

But the Widow still had weaknesses.  Not Barton, Tony couldn’t count on that.  Barton was still with the circus.   Her presence on the playing field was a shock.  Now he needed advantage he could get. 

Her weakness wasn't a person, it wasn't a thing. He rubbed at his temples.  He had spent almost five years dealing with her.  Five years to learn her tells.  Tony knew he wouldn't be able to absolutely predict her every moment.  But he knew what she was capable of, in 2016.  He would just have to hope that she'd only gotten better throughout the years.

Maybe that would be enough. 

It was the best he could hope for, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the Black Widow. She is one of my all time favorite female super heroes. I really hate the denuded and bare bones background that the MCU gives her. Maybe one day the writers will get a clue, but until then this is my answer to it.  
> If you ask how does the comic stuff mesh with the MCU my answer is this. Didn't you really expect Natasha to tell the truth about her background to SHIELD? 
> 
> Really? 
> 
> Also if you are curious about the Alpha designations, those will be fully explained later.


	11. Chapter 10 - Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Left to himself Tony has too much time to think and unexpected visitors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little early on the positing, but I wanted to make sure that this was up in time for the 4th. I think you'll figure out why.

# Chapter 10 - Where there is injury, pardon.  
Where there is doubt, faith.

 

*July 4, 1990*

Leaning against the counter Tony sipped his coffee. Silence stretched out all around him.  It wasn’t the type of stillness that stifled.  It wasn’t the one that smothered either.  This was the quiet that he could relax into, breathe in.

Maybe he was alone, but that didn’t matter.   Moira was off to Scotland to visit her daughter.  Ethan and Eilian he expected back either late tonight or even early tomorrow.  

This wasn’t abandonment.  It was expectation.  They were all coming back…coming home.

He hadn’t been idle while they were away either. He worked hard burying himself in the lab churning out a sweet little search engine for a customer.  But he tempered that with other things. Running in the morning was now a habit, as was working through the Eilian’s katas and Ethan’s weights.  He ran to the music in his headphones when there was nothing else.

He needed the music so loud it was all he could focus on.  Without a partner he couldn’t escape the memories.  Every time he lapped the property he half expected to hear “On your left”.  Every time he looked up from the kata he expected to see a red head with that feral grin on her face.  He couldn’t look at his wrapped hands without feeling…

“Sir.” 

Tony jerked in surprise and then he smiled.  How could he ever think he was alone?  JARVIS was here he was always here and would always be here.

 “Whatcha got J?”

“I have the first report from the Greenland expedition.”  The AI imbued his words with a somber formality that told Tony everything he needed to know.

But the genius did spare a thought that this time JARVIS wasn’t isolated for his formative years.  This time the AI had constant stimulation from various sources.  It wasn’t just Tony with occasional and very subpar conversations with first Rhodey and then eventually Pepper. 

Stane had been around, but the man never addressed the AI as another other than a computer and the AI had responded accordingly.  Tony really did regret not listening to his AI more.

And Tony had an edge.  He knew that this expedition wasn’t going to find anything.  Not like he could really take that for granted know with the Black Widow in play already.

“And what do they have to say?”  

“That the wreckage material they had initial found had be discovered an recorded by a prior expedition.”

“They turned up retreds? “ Now that Tony hadn’t known.  He chewed his lips.  That didn’t seem right.  Greenland wasn’t a big country. Howard had been sending expeditions out since the damn thing went down. 

Rogers had set the thing down in Greenland.  Tony had never gotten the specific location, but he knew that much. 

“So it doesn’t look promising?” he asked anyway just to muse through why that bothered him so much.

“Unfortunately sir.”

“Fifty years of this J.  You would think they would have found it by now.”

“Maybe next year sir.”

The AI didn’t sound hopeful either.  They both knew that next year would be the last of the SI expeditions.

Tony snorted finishing off the last of his coffee.  “Next year is same and you know it.” He waved the empty cup at the camera.  “At least SHIELD doesn’t mess around.  It takes them two years and they find him.”

“It is good to know that SHIELD is an efficient as you have indicated.”  

Tony loved that deadpan sass.  But then he frowned rising off his cup.  “That doesn’t explain why they are coming across retreds.”

Moving up to the kitchen he snagged a bottle of water out of the fridge. He eyed the wall of Tupperware unhelpfully labeled in sections of Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.  It was as if they didn’t trust him to cook his own meals.

But they were there and there was no point in going hungry out of spite.  Tony really didn’t want to see what Moira would do if she came back to leftovers or worse thrown away food.  One valuable and never forgotten lesson: Never piss off your cook.

 “Have you reviewed the materials from Howard’s last few trips?”  He opened on of the ones from the breakfast section.  It looked like some sort of casserole with eggs, ham, peppers and some other stuff. Who knew you could do that for breakfast?  He took a sniff, and it smelled good.  Stuffing it in the microwave he waited for the time to tick down.

He thought about it.  Watching the carrousel turn he thought about all those materials that Jarvis, the human one, had managed to get Tony.  All the maps and logs meticulously recorded from forty five years’ worth of searches.

 That had taken everyone in the house to get it sorted, through the scanners, and replaced in the time Jarvis could afford to have it out.  Everything had been processed: log books, maps, navigation charts, scientific notes and even the films and audio tapes.  It had been down to the wire, but they had managed it all. 

“All relevant data has been correlated.”  JARVIS said.

Tony smiled more for JARVIS’s work than the news. Howard’s notes had been a study in too much and too little.  Those early expeditions had been funded by the elder solely for the purpose of locating the Captain’s downed plane.  After five years though even Howard’s personal fortune had begun to feel the strain and had the investors when Howard had gone on those trips with nothing coming back in return.

Tony admitted that he was petty enough to feel satisfaction on that.  Maybe it was childish but that was one of those little things he clung to that at the end of it all Tony Stark had been rich enough to have funded the expedition for the entire run from his personal fortune without a blink.

It would have been a far better reason even without return than what he had spent money on.

But once Howard had moved to a less expensive route, had solicited investors and teamed up with scientists his control over the mission and even eventually his presence had dwindled.  Fifteen years ago Howard had stopped going at all and only a quarter of the team was dedicated to finding the long lost plane.

He pulled the container out and gave it a stir greedily inhaling the scents. This latest little tidbit was so very interesting.  The log files, even Howard’s copies had registered and listed out every single site , every landmark.  So unless they were coming up against someone else’s search this shouldn’t have happened.

“J can you locate the site in question?”

“I have those coordinates sir.” There was a pause.  “They match the location discovered and recorded from the 1972 expedition.”

So was it stupidity?  Wrong location, coordinate errors, reading the map wrong.  Tony knew stupider things happened. 

Not someone else’s search though.  Which was interesting in and of itself. 

“Has there been any mention in Howard’s materials of any other expedition?  In the news or anything? “

He ate mechanically thinking it over.  Tony couldn’t remember if anyone else had, or at least publicly did it. The army hadn’t, that he knew for certain.  Someone, Rhodey or maybe even Fury, had mentioned once that the US military had left the mystery alone with some vague reasoning about budgets and unnecessary expenses even though they had a base in the damned country. Nope they had left it to Howard and SHIELD.

But that begged the question didn’t it.

“I am unable to find any indication in the log files or in the newspapers of any sign or mentions of other expeditions.” JARVIS reported.

Tony tapped his lips with the fork. 

SHIELD only picked up the search once SI stopped.  That had been after his father died and before Tony had taken over.  So pretty much once Stane found a good enough reason and excuse to get away with it.

And it didn’t make sense.

Studies and attempts to recreate the serum hadn’t died with the plane.  Ross was already on that path even as a junior officer.  Tony made a mental note.  For all the fuck ups and all the stupidity the man still ended up as Secretary of Defense.  But a though for another day.

Everyone knew that Roger’s plane had gone down. Erskine was dead, his notes were nonexistent and Howard sure as hell had been talking.   No one had been the least bit shy about trying to beg, steal, or bribe samples from the dear Captain when the man had been resurrected.

But why not when he had been a Capsicle?  It would have been easier and less painful to get samples from a frozen stiff than from someone bashing at you with the shield. 

Tony had never managed to locate anything on it in SHIELD’s -Hydra’s-  files.  The whole presumed dead thing was an excuse for most of the world.

But not Hydra.  

He ate another bite considering. 

So why hadn’t they tried?

He’d give Hydra the first ten years or so.  After the war they would have been struggling to survive, rooting themselves deeply into the dark.  The next five or ten years they would have been consolidating their resources, money, information, connections and power.  But within thirty or forty years all of those should have been in place just needing supervising and a little touch here and there.  The ball was rolling they just had to keep it on track. 

It wasn’t that they had been silent or inactive during the seventy years; Tony had seen plenty of proof of that.

“Okay J let’s think about this.  Hydra was after the Super Soldier secret from the start right? They’ve got their versions but why not go after the purest version?” 

The scrape of his fork at the bottom of the container had him starring down at it in surprise.  His stomach still rumbled at him, hollow and demanding yet he had worked through the entire thing.  It wasn’t a small container either.  Had he really eaten it all?   Just how many meals had he missed?

But that question was drowned out by all the other more interesting things bouncing around his mind.  So he just grabbed something else, this one a lunch.

“They were not able to find the body?” JARVIS asked, “Or they were dodging the SI expedition.”

“The last one is possible.  Three months sounds like a lot, but it’s really not.” He waved a fork at the ceiling. “But in those fifty years, SI took off a few years here and there it would have been the perfect time to search.”   Tony’s eyes flickered as his brain raced around logic and probability chains.  His paranoia whispered of darker things. 

“Fuck a duck.” He cursed tossing the half empty container and fork onto the table. “Pull up the data on our expedition crew, not the scientists but the ones doing the actual exploring.”

Racing down the stairs Tony continued to call out instructions, he needed the screen to see this.

“They are the same group than always go sir.  A group of ten, five of who have been on all expeditions in the last eleven years and the rest have been on a majority.”

Five screens lit up and split each showing a brief summary of biographical data.

“Where do they get the replacements if not all ten can go?”

“The mission report indicates that the roster will vary between eight to ten members on a given trip.”

Okay that small of a lead team wasn’t –quite- suicidal it still was stupid.  There had to be hundreds of explorers and adrenaline junkies out there trained in the cold weather all of whom had grown up with the stories of Captain America’s fate.

So this wasn’t about SI not having applicants, but some other reason.  And there should be.  Hell, adrenaline junkies would have been queuing up to go for room and board.

“Is there any sort of details on how SI picked this team?  Do we have artic explores on contract or something?”

Try as he might Tony couldn’t remember anything about that.  But then from the day his parents died until his twenty-first birthday most of what he had been given had been sanitized all in the name of “corporate security”.  

“Nothing in my database contains that information Sir.  I will have to investigate the SI papers.”

“I’ll grab the last public reports; maybe they stuffed it under other projects.”  Whirling in this chair Tony grabbed a bottle of water out of the mini fridge gulping it down quickly.

“It’s in house somehow, we know that.  J, pull up a map.  Display all the sites for all the expeditions launched since Stane was named CEO. That should be the last ten.” He waited until the dots began to populate the screen. “Now pull up Howard’s in a different color. “

Watching the grouping, he studied them oldest to newest. Initially he could see the steady progression from the northeastern corner and into the interior.  Stane’s though never went further than Howard’s to the west and concentrated on the coastline. 

“The expeditions chosen sites are all clustered in the north eastern points and all within a 200 km radius.”

“Greenland isn’t that big, they should have been moving further west by now.”  But no all of Stane’s sites hugged that area like it was the Promised Land.  Howard it looked like may have been trying to do go inland, but not since Stane took over. “Any sort of idea why that section?”

“The only reference found is attributed to Howard Stark and dates from his early mission statements.”

Tony rubbed his chin.  “Let’s hear it.”

“Mr Stark stated that the information used to calculate the search parameters were based off a captured German aircraft believed to be similar to the Valkyrie along with details Howard remembered from his observations of the plane in question.”

Tony tossed the empty plastic bottle into the trash his eyes never leaving the maps. 

“And do any of the later ones, after Stane took, over have any such statements?”

“Yes sir.  The 1989 expedition marked the forty-fifth anniversary of the Captain’s disappearance.  Stane issued a statement that the teams were continuing to work with the Valkyrie’s flight capabilities to better extrapolate where the plane could have gone down.  They also stated that they were starting to include under water explorations since it was possible that Captain Rogers never made it to Greenland.”

“And what’s their evidence for that?”

“They don’t have any footnoted sir.”

“Pull up the data on that ‘aircraft’ Howard used.” 

A picture came up on the monitor.  It might look like the Valkyrie, maybe it you squinted.  Both Howard and Stane were engineers; they should have known should have seen this. 

“List everyone, living or missing in action at the time that saw Schmidt’s plane.  Correlate the data so we can get the real list of people actually seeing the thing, not just on record as describing it.”

“I can only base my information on reports in my system.  However the following people are the only people on authenticated military reports as seeing the plane in question.

Tony studied the list with narrowed eyes.  The commandos, various members of SSR that had been close enough storming the base, Peggy Carter and Colonel Phillips.  Not the army, not the press.  Fuck eight people and 6 of them were dead and one missing.  

“So Howard used Peggy’s and the Commandos’ descriptions for the brass.” Tony surmised with a thoughtful nod. He’d check with Aunty Peggy, but would she have really protested?

“I believe he was basing the capability off the reports, what little there was from Captain Rogers and the survivors of the last raid.”

“And Cap didn’t say much about it, just that it was moving fast.”

“I believe so Sir.”

Looking at the dots on the map it all makes sense and it doesn’t.  This wasn’t a methodical or systematic search. 

“And Stane’s the one calling the shots now.”  It made sense.  “If Stane believed Dad’s estimates, his calculations…” Tony’s voice trailed off as all the possibilities flooded his brain.

“Yes Sir.”

Tapping on the desk he had to think about this.  He didn't know the exact coordinates.  No one had given him them. He knew the approximate location though, but he’s going to need more.  A way to convince people that their “expert” is wrong and for that he’s going to need solid irrepressible proof that Captain Rogers is there with his shield.

His shield, the smile that curls his lips has been called mischievous and usually followed with several people saying “No Tony”.

“JARVIS.” He asked. “How good are you at hooking up with satellites?”

“I will polish my pickup lines now Sir.” The AI deadpan and Tony almost falls off his stool laughing.  

“I love you J.”

 “I feel a certain level of affection for you as well Sir.”

But that didn’t answer the question that buzzes the back of his head. “Why didn’t Hydra search for Rogers?”

“I do not have enough information to answer that sir.”

They could be playing the same card as the military, or even SHIELD.

“And we never get it, not trying to spoil it for you, but I never thought to ask.”  Tony looks over the data, sweeps through the pictures that JARVIS shifts through on the screen. 

“Freeze that one.” He snaps and it goes back to one of the Howling Commandos.  Steve Rogers stood with his arm around James Barnes, smiles lighting up both their faces.

“Hydra knows the serum will protect against hypothermia.” He says slowly trying the words because they sounded insane.  “They can’t risk SI finding Rogers because if they do we’ll try to bury him, and we will thaw him out.”

“And should they use conventional methods it will be discovered that Captain Rogers is alive.”

“And even the benefits of the serum don’t outweigh having someone around that knows Hydra. “ It all crashes together in his head.

“There are still plenty of people around that fought Hydra sir.”

“A few that fought them directly.  I bet you a new server if we looked up the mortality statistics for those folk it’s going to be a hell of a lot higher than the average for age and race.”

“I would not take that bet Sir.”

“No, getting Steve Rogers back would mean we’ve got a fresh look at an old problem.  He didn’t fight Hydra 40 years ago, he fought it yesterday.  He’s never grown up or old being told that they are gone.  Hell if you gave him enough time and motivation once he got his feet under him…”

Tony stared at the screen in horror. 

SHIELD found Steve, quickly and efficiently. 

SHIELD was Hydra.

Acclimatized to the new age, absorbed all the history and was shoveled every single piece of SHIELD slanted propaganda they wanted to feet him. 

“J pull up the Timeline for Series Omega 1 for Alpha 1.”

He looked at the dates, the pieces and swore viciously.  “Once he got his feet under him, but he wasn’t given the time to get his feet under him, not all the way was he?”

 ~*~

Staring at the bottle didn’t change anything.  It taunted him.  His first drink had been scotch.  Tony sighed and just tried to ignore the bottle.  His last drink had been scotch.  He would savor the taste of the top shelf bottles and slam down the harshest taste just to stop the pain.

_// He just couldn’t leave well enough alone could he? “Any plans for today Cap?”  Tony asked strolling into media room a personable smile on his face._

_He caught the minute jerk of the muscles in the blonde’s back.  He couldn’t see the man’s face, but he’d been staring out at the Manhattan skyline, not a twitch not word for way to long._

_“Hadn’t really thought about it.”  He can risk the wince hearing the roughness in Steve’s voice._

_This was a little harder than he’d thought it would be.  But Tony set the envelope on the table.  “It’s not anything much, but I thought if you wanted…”_

_Something about his babble made Steve turn around. His eyes went straight to the envelope._

_“I’ll be going.”  Tony muttered._

_“Tony?” It’s more a request than a question and the engineer freezes.  Now he’s the one that can’t turn around, can’t watch.  But he can hear the rustle of paper._

_“Brooklyn Cyclones?”_

_He can feel his ears heat, god damn it he’s too old to be blushing.  “It’s a minor league team, in Brooklyn.  Games are a lot of fun.”  He is not shuffling his feet damn it._

_“I-“//_

_The blare of the assemble alarm had them both startling, and moving.  The tickets drift back down to the table in a silent room. //_

They never got to go, Doom and his stupid resulting in five days in SHIELD medical.  The silence scraped at his nerves, but music or the babble of the television stretched them taunt. 

_// It was a nightmare.  It wasn’t real.  Tony could see the sweat and the blood on Steve’s, Cap’s, face.  He didn’t have the right to call him Steve.  There was pain in those blue eyes, no regret, no apology, just pain and a touch of misery.  But Tony held firm, lifted up his hand and felt the surge as the repulsor charged._

_“Stay down…final warning.”_

_“I could do this all day.” //_

The bottle hit the wall and exploded into a thousand glittering shards.  The scent of alcohol overwhelmed him making him gag.

Steven Grant Rogers had never had a chance.  All the politicking, all the manipulating, every day from the time he woke up to when they faced off the man had never had a chance.

Four years out the ice. five fucking years to deal with the shit he’d seen and done in the war, the loss of his best friend, losing every single person he had ever known or met.  And Peggy, Jesus, dealing with a Peggy Carter he last saw as a twenty something and the next time she’s in her 90s and barely remembered her damn name.  Loki, Hydra reemergence, Ultron, and Bucky’s back in five years.

“Are you alright Mr. Stark?”

His head snapped up.  Coulson, fuck. 

“Breaking and Entering Agent; isn’t that you know a little illegal?”

The words didn’t break the bland expression.  “So is underage drinking.”

Tony just shrugged.  “Wasn’t drinking.” He sighed rubbing his hands through his hair.  “Thought about it.  Didn’t.”

Those eyes saw too much.  “Not one for the holiday spectacular?”

Tony was very much not in the mood or mindset for dealing with Agent Agent today.  “What do you want Coulson?” he asked not giving a damn how weary he sounded.  

“We’ve been trying to get time to sit down with you for months Mr. Stark.”

The genius just rolled his eyes.  “Talk to Director Carter, I’m sure she can fill you in.”

“How long have you been sober Mr. Stark?”

Tony jerked, that was not the question he was expecting.  Damn he was too tired to deal with this.  “Too long and not long enough.”

The man just stood there taking it all in.  Tony couldn’t look at him, couldn’t face him.  The cool composed agent with the average suits, the bland man in black with the blood stained shirt. 

Fuck, he rubbed at his eyes just trying to forget. 

“Three months?” The agent guessed.  Tony wanted to snap back to say two years, because it has been two fucking years.  Too busy and too tired but it was still two years.

“What do you want Agent?” Tony asked again the flurry of mental babble and nastiness dying on his lips.  You couldn't deflect the Agent, you could only try to out wait him, and Tony’s never been a patient man.

“What happened in March?”

“Lots of shit happened in March, I got drunk, finished my thesis, did a presentation or two, had sex a few times. “

“When you were kidnapped Mr. Stark.”

Tony smiled just a little..  “I need coffee.” He stood without waiting for an answer.  He had to get away from the smell sinking into his nose. Coffee was pretty much the cure for anything.

The motions helped.  Rising and washing the carafe, playing hunt for the damn filters, and pulling it all together.  The mundane task was both grounding and soothing.  It stripped away the anger and helped to steady his hands.

 Phil didn’t know, couldn’t know. 

_// “Mr. Stark, we need to talk.”_

_Tony rolls his eyes. “You have reached the life model decoy of Tony Stark, please leave a message._

_“This is urgent.”_

_“Then leave it urgently.” But the elevator opens and when Coulson walk around Tony knows that he might have lost what control he had of this night’s fun._

_“Security breach.”//_

“Would you like some coffee Agent?”  Tony hadn’t bothered to check if Coulson had followed.  He couldn’t hear the other man’s footsteps, and just like Barton and Romanov he would always assumed he was there until he got what he came for.

“That would be good thank you.”

The caffeine was enough -barely-  for Tony to get a better hold on the emotions rolling through him.  The twist to his nerves and the cold calm, he knew those.  That’s anger left dormant and untapped.  He has to set down his cup before he shattered it. 

He didn’t sit, couldn’t sit, but twirled the spoon between his fingers in one hand.

“I was at a party. I got drunk and kidnapped.  I don’t remember much after the first day.” Tony left it there.

“And you haven’t drank since?”

“Really that’s where we’re going with this?” The spoon tapped against his palm and his fingers. 

“Did you notice anything about the group that grabbed you?”

Fuck, The Amazing Coulson sees all.  His only saving grace was that Agent saw all, not knew all.   The man didn’t yet have the advantage from years of dealing with Hawkeye the master of deflection and assholery and followed with Natasha the queen of obfuscation, but Tony wasn’t going to bet on being able to fool him for a minute.

So he’ll give the man what he wants and get him to go away.  “Amateurs that got incredibly lucky because I was incredibly stupid.”

“Amateurs? They did manage to kidnap you and keep you for two weeks.”

That spoon flickered back and forth, front and back beating a tattoo against his skin.  “No handcuffs, no guards. I was two steps from the front door.” He sneered because he can’t think about it.

“What happened? “

A chill bit at his neck, he can feel it.  He can see the spots moving into his vision.  The stench of blood, his blood rising up and he tapped the spoon on his chest.  No clang of glass and metal, no ache of bones. The echo back is the meaty thump of flesh and blood.  Tony stilled the spoon on his fingers.

“If I knew that Agent I would be a much happier man.”

The back door slammed open and both men rose and turned in almost identical moves. Then Tony saw past the glare of sunlight.

“Honey Bear!” he yelled holding out his arms like he hadn’t just been reaching for a weapon.

Rhodey’s glare was very impressive.

 “I’ll be leaving Mr. Stark.”  Coulson said gathering his coat.  “Please call me if you have any other details.”

Tony just rolled his eyes and didn’t bother to lie.  Coulson’s lips twitched in a half smile before he left.

“What did he want?”  Rhodey asked still standing by the door. 

Tony waved it away.  “Just to rehash details on the kidnapping.”

“Still?” Rhodey asked incredulous.  “It’s been months Tones.  Didn’t they get enough the first round?”

He didn’t squirm.  “So what brings you to my neck of the woods?”  He asked instead.  “Aren’t you supposed to be training or something?”

The look he got told Tony he wasn’t fooling anyone.  “Leave.”  Rhodes said crossing his arms.  “And I wanted you meet someone.”

Tony studied his friend this was different, a little strange.  He couldn’t remember Rhodey ever talking about someone he met not until years later.  Then again the older man had been looking after him for a very long time.

“That was quick Sugar Bean.”  He smiled at the eye roll.  “So where are you stationed these days?”

“Edwards.” 

It had been Los Angeles last time.  Better to keep an eye on the SI scion, not Edwards.

“So you brought your girl across the country for little old me.”  Tony smirked.  “I’m touched, really touched. “

Suspicion and just a little concern flickered over his old friends features when Tony stopped and just smiled.  Oh there was a lot he could say, would have said, babbling on and on with almost anything just to make the man squirm. 

“Don’t keep her waiting in the car, what kind of boyfriend are you anyway? How did you managed to get a girl, if you can’t be trusted not to leave her alone. ” 

The concern slid away to fond exasperation and Tony breathed out a sigh of relief when Rhodes turned away.

Tony waited with as much patience as he could.  He wanted to get back to work, wanted to escape to his workshop or even show Rhodey what he’d been up to, but nope, he got to play the social host.  His brain ticked over who it could be.  He’d never really seen Rhodey with someone during their college years.  A few girls here and there but none of them stuck around.

His thought skittered to a halt as the door opened.  The same strawberry blond hair, those blue eyes and creamy skin where he could name every freckly and had explored every inch.

Fuck.

“Tony, this is Virginia Potts.” 

Tony moved on autopilot, scrambling to pull on one of his smiles. “A genuine pleasure are you sure you name isn’t Pepper?” He purred earning a cuff on the back of his from Rhodey.

The woman looked at him and then matched the other man’s amused and exasperated expression.  “James warned me about you.”  She smiled then.  “Why Pepper?”

Tony still remembered the reaction from her the first time he’d given her than nickname.  “Because Red isn’t a hair color it’s a warning label.  And with that shade maybe a little more warning would be appropriate.”

 Half assed sure, but it was still better than being smacked for the freckles comments.

“You were right James.  He is endearing.”  Her smile bordered on sharp.  “Just like a puppy.”

Tony couldn’t help himself.  “Talking about me to your girlfriend Jelly Bean?”

Rhodey just rubbed his forehead.  “And here I thought you’d actually grow up Tones.”

“Slander and Lies.”  Tony rubbed his hands together.  “So pizza?”

He did manage to clean up some of the shards of glass and use towels to soak up the mess.  He ignored Rhodes looks sweeping them both up in his babble and questions.

“So what’s this I hear you’ve ditched SI?”  Rhodes asked after the pizza had been consumed.  Pepper had retired to one of the guest rooms, so it was just the two standing outside seeing if they could catch a glimpse of any fireworks.

“I didn’t ditch SI.” Tony sighed.  Yeah, this made sense.  SI was still the military’s biggest contractor.  Anything that happened with SI, bore investigating by the brass.  “You’re bosses make you come here Rhodes?”

The other man took a sip of his beer.  “A little, but I’d take any excuse to see you.”

Tony huffed a laugh.  “They should be checking in with Howard, not me.  SI will still make weapons.  Nothing to worry about. “

“So the concerns that you’ve pretty much sworn off working on weapons isn’t true?”

“Who’d you hear that from Pooky?”  Tony drank from his coffee.  “You know better than to believe the trash they print in the scandal rags.”

“So you aren’t pulling R&D folks away from SI?”

“Wow so angry Honey bunch.” Tony mocked.  “Who did you hear this from?”

“If it’s not true it doesn’t matter does it?” Rhodey snapped back.

“And you are going to report it back to your bosses Rhodes?”

Rhodey just sighed and slumped a little.  “So it’s true. What the hell were you thinking man?”

Tony studied the dark skinned man trying to clear away all the history.  His history, not Rhodey’s, they only had the four years, not the twenty or more to go with. 

“Still acting like the big brother Rhodes.”  He said into his glass wishing there had been rum to go with the coke.

“Still acting like the spoiled child Stark.”

Tony had to stop, had to think.  This wasn’t making sense.  It did back in the day…or in the future.  Hell Tony had gotten it then.  Tony had been SI, had been the one making the weapons.  But now, when he’s barely out of college it just doesn’t. 

“So what have you heard Lieutenant?” Tony strove to keep his voice even, to keep his temper in check.

“Does it matter?  If it’s true then…” when Rhodes shrugged Tony saw, his brain raced into overdrive calculating theories and evidence.

Then he smiled a razor sharp smile.  This wasn’t the college student smile; this was the business man’s smile.

“Let me guess, rumors about how unstable SI is now.  How they can’t maintain their cutting edge lead in the weapons business for much longer.”

He didn’t need to see it confirmed in Rhodey’s face.

“And I bet they sweetened it with how much of SI’s R&D department, their lead designer is on strike or something of that nature.”

“That you basically walked and pretty took the entire R&D sections and their prototypes with you.”

That set Tony off. He laughed and laughed.  Oh he could see it, just every piece of it. The harder he laughed the more pissed Rhodey looked.

“Oh, Pooh Bear.” Tony said when he finally could control himself.  “So you got sent with the task to rein me in, to make me toe the line?”

Rhodey looked a little started and Tony wondered just what was showing in his voice. 

“It’s about responsibility-“ Rhodes start and Tony had an enough. 

“Come with me.”  He said and walked back inside.  If Rhodey didn’t follow it would say one thing. 

But he did, and Tony walked down through the workshop and into the fabrication area.  Copies of all his contracts were locked into the safe.  The original were somewhere else.

He pulled the SI contract from the vault and handed it over.  “Read it.”

“What is –“

“Read it.” Tony snapped. 

He didn’t bother to wait while the other man read.  Once Rhodey's eyes started scanning the page Tony left. Retreating back into the workshop he was glad that all the Roger’s information was digital nothing to hide and nothing to clean up.

He was still working through one of the search engine prototypes when the papers were gently set down on the table. Tony took a minute to adjust some of the properties before pulling his attention back to Rhodes.

“I’m sorry.” Rhodes said with a sigh.  “When the rumors started about how you were trying to deliberately sabotage SI and how you were stripping out the R&D section, the brass went nuts.”

Tony hummed and continued working.  “You know me better than that Rhodey.” He smiled a little.  “If I was going to do something to ‘sabotage’ SI it wouldn’t be this.”

“The contract doesn’t make sense Tones.  Why all the legal jargon just to work at SI?  I thought that was your big dream.  Work for the company and show your Dad just how good you are?”

“Dreams change.”  He wasn’t talking about this. “Do you have any idea who talked to the Brass?”

Rhodes just shrugged.  “They just said it was someone high enough to take seriously.”

“I bet.” He had nothing, no shred of proof. 

“So what’s this all about Tones?”

“Are you asking as an officer of the US Military or my friend?”

The other man looked a little surprised and a little hurt.  “Is there a difference?”

Yeah, there was.  “Look at me Rhodey.” Tony said spreading his arm out wide.  “I’m an eighteen year old kid.  Who the hell is going to risk their livelihood for me?”  And wasn’t that the kicker.  Even at forty five year old few had done that for the infamous Tony Stark. 

“You are kinda of cute in a lost puppy kind of way.” Rhodey smirked and just like that things were okay again.  But the expression turned serious.  “What is going on Tones?”

That was the old friend asking, he could answer that.  “Power play.”  Tony said simply.  “Someone and no I don’t have enough evidence to say who, is very upset that I’m not playing by their rules.”

“Evidence since when does Tony Stark need evidence? Mr. Going Off Half-Cocked?”

He smiled a little, and yeah he did that. “It could be anyone Rhodes, it could be an SI insider or it could be a competitor hoping to get their hands on the military contracts.”

“So Stane?” Rhodey guessed. 

Tony didn’t acknowledge the response. People always underestimated James Rhodes, thinking he was the sidekick or less intelligent.  Standing next to a lot of the people, mostly one Tony Stark, it was understandable.  Stupid, but understandable.

“So still pissed at me Honey Bunch?”

“No, but what the hell Stark? All this for a power play because you won’t come join SI full time, that’s insane.”

Maybe he could see where this went.  “Take a good look at SI military patents in the last ten years Rhodes. That will answer your question.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Tony smiled. Rhodey wasn’t stupid at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your comments and kudos. I really means a lot. Please keep them coming let me know what you think and if you have any requests.


	12. Chapter 11 - Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New players enter the stage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own any of the Marvel characters.  
> Sorry for the delay. Summers suck and sometimes the muse just wants to play with something else in the very little free time I have left.

07/15/1990

 

Phil Coulson was a calm man by nature.  He used reason and logic alongside of intuition and guess work.  He was the person that more junior agents always seem to look to when things went…wrong.  When other were overwhelmed with fear, anger, pain or any human emotion they would always look to him. 

The rumors painted him as a robot, or Fury’s android, but he was human.  And right now?  Right now he was feeling a lot of things.

In the privacy of his office he could admit to it.  He stared down at the innocent looking file on his desk and sat with a sigh.  And wasn’t it ironic that just the file by itself could give him a headache.

Stark, Anthony Edward.

He'd gotten the files once the Director Carter had pulled him in.  This hadn't been the first time that Stark had been kidnapped.  And normally SHIELD wouldn't have gotten involved, not even for a Former Director's godson. But this hadn't been a normal kidnapping.  There had been no ransom demand, no word of any kind.  The last time that had meant the kid had escaped himself.  But no one had turned up and there had been a distinct lack of explosion that marked the last time someone had grabbed the kid. 

Phil had wanted to be prepared, what to know what he could. So every spare second he poured over the extensive collection of newspaper articles, trade journal, school transcripts,  and everything and anything that SHIELD analysts had managed to get their hands on.

Some of it had appalled him. No just the things that Stark himself had been up to, but the way the tabloid reported every little indiscretion and how they gloated at every perceived “mistake”.  The trade and industry journals hadn’t been left out of his ire either.  The first interview they did had been when the kid was _six._

Phil knew the setup everyone watching, every posed for the next great discovery or the next sensationalized story.   He could see the never ending cycle already starting to ramp up.

And that putrid ground what were SHIELD analysts and profilers rooted their recommendations and evaluations. Hindsight was a bear. 

He rubbed his temples.

Phil had realized it only after actually meeting Tony Stark. He’d seen the beaten and tortured man so still and pale that it had taken a moment to realize the battered body wasn’t that of a dead man.  That the blue tinted lips still breathed. 

Just inside the door Phil had been ready to call it in, had even reached for the comm to do so, but he’d seen it.  In his years in the Rangers and then in SHIELD Phil had seen people with lessor injuries screaming, he’d seen the unconscious.  Hell he’d seen them died. But there was this skinny seventeen year old kid struggling not just to stay conscious, but to get up.

Maybe it was the pain or the delirium but there had been no masks, no hiding the emotions the kid was feeling. For a brief moment Phil could read every one through the kid’s eyes.

Phil had seen disbelief in the eyes of agents before when they had lost hope of anyone finding them.  Prisoners unwilling to believe that they really were saved and that maybe just maybe their ordeal was over. 

That wasn’t the disbelief he’d seen.  This was a personal thing.  Stark hadn’t expected to see _him._ The kid’s eyes had fastened on Phil the moment he had stirred enough to know there was someone there.  Watching that struggle to respond, to react had upped his respect that much more. The first things had been stubborn defiance, as if Anthony Edward Stark wasn’t going to be rescued, he was going to walk out on his own.

But when Phil had said his own name, had taken off the helmet it changed.  The defiance overcome by the shock of surprised and doubt mixed with something else, something Phil never had a chance to identify.  There were not many SHIELD agents that would have seen it and fewer that would have taken stock in it at all.  But Phil was a man who saw those little pieces, things that no one considered important and tried to understand them.

Maybe it was the kidnapping, Phil would give the analysts that much credit.  It was possible that whatever had happened in that bunker to have so fundamentally changed a person.  And things had happened to leave wounds like that. 

Few really knew the exactly how bad Tony Stark had been when they pulled him out.  Himself, Fury, and the combat medics they had be loaned.  Not even the rest of the STRIKE team knew.  By the time the rest of the STRIKE team had cleared the rest of the facility the medics had Stark bandaged up and ready for transport. 

Him, Fury, and a combat medical team that had been pulled in by Former Director Carter. Phil mused

A four man team, Dr Buchanan who looked to be set as Tony Stark’s personal physician and two of the three others on that team now worked for Stark. So no one had thought it odd that Stark was already up and moving.  No one knew enough to comment on the short hospital stay.  Oh, there were the expected jokes and snide remarks about hard to please spoiled brats.

Phil wasn’t buying that either.  He’d been the one to talk to the few orderlies and the lone nurse that had not only seen Stark but had interacted with him.  He’d seen the smiles and heard the stories, amusing stories told with genuine amusement.   Stories that were completely different than anything told in those damn files.  Those had been collected by social peers and old school colleges, not friends.  They had painted themselves as friends and the analysts had reported them as such, but taking a closer look Phil was beginning to wonder if the kid had any real friends before college.  These had been eager to talk, but their information had been more the style of the gossip rags and the magazines. 

Phil had missed it too, so he couldn’t really blame the profilers.  He’d missed that there was nothing from the people central to Stark’s life.  All the college stories panted both Stark and to one person who had been at his side, James Rhodes.  But SHIELD had nothing. A thin little file on the Air Force officer but the only comments had been bland general things that frankly reminded Phil of Name, Rank, and Serial Number.

Phil hadn’t gotten further with Rhodes then he had with Stark.  Both men had avoided his call, had refused to answer any questions.  The first time in the hospital and the other day had been the total of Phil interaction with either man.

The first meeting Phil had gotten a good look at the Tony Stark behind the mask.  But only when Phil had watched the man alone and unaware had Phil understood. Phil hadn’t seen a young man struggling with what had happened.  He hadn’t seen someone whose illusions of safety and privilege had been ripped away.  No he hadn’t seen any of what the profilers and analysts had predicted. Phil had seen a man struggling with the worst enemy anyone could face, he was fighting himself.

And then it clicked. All those odd little bits and pieces that Phil had notice but never understood. 

The bone deep weariness in the way Stark moved when he wasn’t observed, Phil expected from a font line veteran, not an eighteen year old kid.   And when Phil guessed three months of sobriety that flare of annoyance as if Phil had gotten it wrong.

He’d pulled up every interview and ever surveillance footage he could and everything was clearly before and after.  There were glimpses from before tiny shimmers of the resolute man of the after.  Gone were the pretenses and the excess.  Gone were the affectations and the playfulness.

This Tony Stark had been melted down and re-forged.

Phil reached for the phone.  He needed confirmation, needed something to make sure that he was seeing it for what he was. And maybe, just maybe he wanted some reassurance that what had been recast was really steel and not slag.

“Director Carter please.”

~*~

 

Once upon a time she never let a mission bother her.  Once upon a time she killed without concern or remorse.  And once upon a time she played her part, did her job and walked away and never thought about it again.

Once upon was gone.

Locking the door behind her the band of tension left her shoulders.  Slipping out the high heels drained it from her legs. The stabs of pain in her temples fell away with the suit jacket.

Mannerisms and expressions slipped away as she put away the earrings and the necklace.  Shucking the persona as she removed each little piece.

 “And how was work today darling.”

The low rumble of that voice didn’t startled her at all.  She sat instead at the vanity in her stocking and camisole  and looked into the mirror.  The bed was draped shadows and gilded in moonlight.  But there was enough to see the angle of his jaw and the glint of blue in gray eyes.

Brisk hands removed the last of the makeup.  Dropping the cloth in the garbage she pulled on a robe. 

“I could think of better ways to have spent my day.” She admitted turning to face the bed. 

“Oh?” Was there a spark of interest in those eyes?  

“Siberia in the winter.” She tossed out.  “Munich with even worse intel.”

His face stiffened as she expounded her list, the tightening of the eyes and the twitch of the lips.

“And then there as the Parisians sewers, without a map.” she plucked the fake eyelashes and dared him. 

His laughter rang out in the room.

“I’m sorry.” He said once he’d managed to catch his breath.  “If I could do it would.”  The light filtering in from the windows glinted off bronze highlights in the dark brown hair. 

Climbing onto the bed she let her self be held.  She traced the lines of his face, his shoulders.  Running her fingers through his hair she frowned again at the difference.  Gone were the shoulder length locks.  This was short on the sides, almost military, but the top was still long enough to shield his face or…she massaged the scalp a little, pull back away from his eyes when he needed to.

On the surface he was just another man in a city of them.  No one would see the things she did.

Her hands shifting gliding down the column of his neck and the plain of his shoulders.  He did grimace a little when her right skimmed the left.

“It’s bothering you.” It wasn’t a question.

He shrugged.  “It always does.”

She’d removed the bullet, a lucky shot from when they had left Venice.  It was possible there were still fragment in there.   The arm still worked, but some days the pain was worse than others.  She suspected it was much more painful that he was willing to admit.

“Tell me about Stane.” He said gathering her back into his arms and nestling her so she could hear his heart beat.

“If it wasn’t for the job I would have killed him by now.” She admitted and listened to the chuckle reverberating in his chest.

“I understand it's a common reaction.“  The hand stroking her back was all the reassurance she needed.

Why talking to him made her feel better she couldn’t guess.  Debriefs she had plenty of.  But this wasn’t what it was.  This wasn’t about what she had done, what she had accomplished.  This was all about her opinion, her feelings.

It felt free.

“He’s insinuating that I should get closer to Stark.”  Another laugh and she didn’t bother with elbowing him. 

“That shouldn’t take long.” He muttered.

Pulling back a little she looked at his face.  “That’s the thing.” She said.  “Take everything we’ve heard about Tony Stark and throw it away.”

That got her a raised eyebrow.  “You’re saying he’s not interested?”

She tapped her fingernails on his chest.  “No.  But it’s not like the media or even our intelligence says.”  She shifted the order of things in her head. Pulled all the pieces into a whole.

“He’s not perfect.  But while there is interest, he’s subtle about it.”

That got a snort, for the Black Widow to say someone was subtle…to say Stark was subtle was a bit of an accomplishment.

“He’s focused in a way that no one ever mentions.  He’s working long hours I can tell the two days he’s at SI its non-stop.”

“To get back into his daddy’s good graces.”

His mouth snapped shut at her cool look.  “If that was what he wanted he wouldn’t have made the deal.” 

She’d seen those papers, dealt with the irate Stane when Stark had threatened to walk.  Had listened to the old man rant about losing everything.

She watched him open his mouth to say something else and then close it again.  Another wince when he turned.

“We need to find someone to look at this.” She said firmly.

“Who?” He snapped back.  “There are maybe two people on this planet not with Hydra that might have a chance. “

“So we go to them.” She snapped back.

“One’s Howard. Trust me that won’t go over well.”

She rolled her eyes. Because it was obvious, the kid was smarter than his father. She crossed her arms at his abrupt nod.  “So what do we do?”

James Buchanan Barnes looked at her with a grim smile.  “Wait and see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So surprise! 
> 
> Yes I will update the tags. Eventually. 
> 
> I like these types of chapters. I think it helps give the story a little fullness to see how things are effecting others. But maybe that just me.


	13. Chapter 12 -I had never been a coward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony gets a not date and an idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Editing to remove the oops chapter for the new one.* 
> 
> Thanks to everyone that gave kudos and feedback and put up with the oops. 
> 
> Also thanks for everyone putting up with the slow updates. I have this outlined but sometimes with a review it just doesn't flow right. Add in all the RL fun stuff of adulting (which I don't recommend but have to do anyway) things are going to be a little slow. I am desperately trying to keep this as different as possible from my other version of Tony. Let me know how I'm doing.
> 
> Title from - A Line in the Sand Linkin Park

09/10/1990

Somethings in life were inevitable as sunrise and as immutable as idiocy.  Forget Reed Richards, forget Justin Hammer nope it was paperwork which would lead to his inevitable villainy.

/ _Pepper glared at him holding out the pen.  “You know if you spent even half the time doing paperwork instead of avoiding it this wouldn’t be an issue.”_

_He gasped and placed a hand over his heart.  “Then you would have something else to yell at me about.”_

_Her lips tried and failed to fight the urge to smile.  “True.”/_

Tony smiled down at the stack.  He never would admit it then or now but half the fun had been watching Pepper get so riled about it.  Granted the other half had been that he absolutely positively hated paper work, but then again who didn’t.

It was tempting to beat his head on his desk.   Even more so to flee the scene; run off to some place with sandy beaches and cool drinks and wile away the years, but he couldn’t.

He cast a gimlet eye over the piles.  It had been so much easier when Pepper had been the CEO.  He’d gotten to play in R&D, and even better skipped all the boring stuff like meetings and the holiest of grails foisted off most of the paperwork.  She’d only tracked him down and forced him to sign the really important things. 

He sighed.  Well he wasn’t the majority shareholder and he wasn’t rich, yet.  So he picked up his pen.  Several other…colleges had decided to pick up Stane’s fun little game of sneak things in or leave things out so Tony had to read every single thing whether it needed his signature or not.  He gritted his teeth through pages upon pages of meaningless words and charts and graph in full color glory that tell him there is nothing to report.

“Congratulations.”

Tony blinked pulling his attention up and away from the collections of “as evidenced by” and “included in”. 

“Excuse me?” He asked.

“I said congratulations. “ She repeated now with the slight line between her eyebrows daring him to ask again or disagree.

It took him a minute to get the rest of him brain on line with that pronouncement.

Natasha, Natalie, damn it Ms. Rushman was leaning against his desk with just a trace of the super spy patent pending smirk on her face.

“For?”  There had been so much going on in the last month and so much more coming in the next few that Tony had really no clue what she was talking about.

She did that thing where tilted her head trying to figure out if he was joking or not.  It was a weird thing, having dealt with Ms. Rushman before there were little pieces that didn’t quite match.  Tiny details she didn’t have right. Maybe it was experience or maybe something else.  It just set his nerves on end every time she did it.

“The Novell contract.”  She spoke slowly and evenly and Tony really needed to stop trying to equate this one to his Tasha. They weren’t the same, they weren’t going to be the same.   

The papers rustled when she stood back up straight and he was very grateful. He knew better, dear god in heave he knew better, but no matter how often his very adult brain tried his very teenage body wasn’t getting with the program.  Even the memories of all the nasty ways he’d seen her kill people wasn’t enough nor was the times that she stabbed, started or generally made his life hell.

He needed to get laid.

He smirked even as he wanted to shrug.  “Thank you.” 

“Are you up for a break to review your calendar for this week?”

Tony almost whimpered.  “Please?”

Desperate men were still a thing her smile edged closer to real, closer to familiar. Dutifully they both opened their holy bibles of what Tony Stark should be doing. 

“You have two meetings Wednesday.  One with Jonathan Morgan in Consumer electronics, he would like you to review the projections for a civilian version of the SEABEEs laptop.  And Sumter in Ordinance is back again. “

Suddenly the paperwork looked much more inviting.  In the grand scheme of all the things that Tony was dealing with Allan Sumter was a pothole and maybe not even that.  But just like Hammer or even Killian he was a pothole that decided to make Tony’s life as difficult as possible.

The name only vaguely rang bells; Ordinance had been Obie’s baby.  And when Tony had closed that division for the clean energy initiative Sumter must have been one of the few that hadn’t made the transition.  It made sense considering the way that Sumter modeled himself after the older man.  If Stane had ever demonstrated the least little permission Sumter would have erected an altar in a heartbeat. Every mannerism, every opinion, the man could copy including the persecution of one Tony Stark was done with an attention to detail that was beyond bazaar.

Stane, Tony had to take it from with a stiff upper lip, but not some rabid little close with delusions of adequacy.  The man hadn’t gotten a clue with Tony had responded to meeting requests with flat denials.  Two meetings with Natalie Rushman hadn’t made a dent in the man’s perseverance either.

Both said bad things about the man’s self preservation skills and maybe his sanity.

Of course Sumter’s response to Tony’s unwillingness to deal with ordinance was to go crying to Stane that Tony was being mean to him.

Tony rubbed his temples.  Cap might have actually been proud or maybe a little impressed with the sheer amount of self control it had taken not to snap out the hundreds of acidic comments and rejoinders filling Tony’s brain just in the space of that half hour meeting from hell.

Be a team player.

Help your fellow employees.

Somehow Tony didn’t think that putting up a sign that read ‘You must be this tall and blond to lecture me on team work’ would be a good response.

But he’d taken it.  Taken it all and even asked for it in writing.  Just another confirmation Stane wasn’t taking Tony’s employment contract seriously and neither was anyone else.  He wondered if they had gotten yet, or maybe they just considered Tony too naïve and trusting.  He smirked at little at the stack of paperwork. 

Unlike Stane or hell Howard, Tony did have the option of putting Sumter down hard. Slap the arrogant ass down hard enough that either he stayed down or he tried to come back harder.  Tony did love it when they tried that especially in business, they got so careless.

‘Fine.  Move it to the end of the day for a half hour..” Tony tapped his fingers on the desk. “And I want you in it.”

She quirked an eyebrow.  “To clean up the blood?”

He grinned.  “No. I assume you can do the whole stern and annoyed thing right?” 

That flat stare was far enough from the ‘I will kill you slowly’ look that she had to be secretly pleased and his grin widened.  “Perfect. “

Relentless she kept going. “You also have the Fundraiser gala on Friday evening.”

Tony groaned because she was evil like that.  “The Historical Society one?”  Because that was his life.  This wasn’t SI this was a Stark ‘family’ affair headed by dear old dad years and years after war when they looked back with nostalgia and rose colored glasses.  And there was Tony without a suitable excuse.

“So that’s the one I need a plus one for correct?” 

“Take your girlfriend.” She said with a sharp smile not even bothering to hid the wicked amusement oozing from every pore.

“That is assuming I have one.” He shot back; she was fishing again on this topic or teasing.  Knowing her it was probably both.

“What about your assistant?” And Tony was very impressed with how she avoided putting any sort of stress on the last word.

Yeah it was both.  More the teasing, but it had been a few weeks so he could laugh about it, finally. 

“You saw that interview?” 

The Bugle had for some incomprehensible reason taken an unrestrained interest in Tony.  Maybe Jameson had a thing for brunettes, considering the man’s track record Tony wasn’t flattered.  But he put up with it since the founding of Stark Resilient.  It was in a way free advertising, or at least that was how Rhian kept reminding him to look at it as.   Tony thought it was bullshit considering the rants about his former, mind you former, habits, his new company and his new house all with the chorus of this was what was wrong with America today. They hadn’t slipped yet into actionable slander, but Tony was waiting for the day.

“Who hasn’t?”

That was true.  One of Jamison’s more morally flexible and less intelligent reports had tracked Eilian down when she was running errands in Manhattan.  But they erred, seriously a giant whale of an err, since she was out and about not for Tony Stark, but for herself, on one of those rare things called a day off.

The reporter had taken in the small stature for delicacy.  They had misread the polite reserve as timidity and fired with both barrels.

Was she sleeping with her boss?

In a normal world there would have been vehement denials, sputtering indignation or flustered comments.  Tony would have put good money down on her punching the man in the gut and kneeing him in the balls for daring to interrupt her “me time”.

No one, not the crowd gathering to listen, not the camera man and certainly not the reporter had been expecting what they had gotten.  

Laughter, deep gut busting laughter.  A full three minutes of Eilian laughing.  Then another two minutes of deep gasping breaths to regain her composure. 

How did Tony know?  Because of course someone had timed it. 

In the edge she patted the shocked reporter on the shoulder, thanked him for the best laugh she’d had in months and walked away. With the occasional snort and giggle. And of course Eilian hadn’t breathed a worded about it, had left him in the dark about the whole thing until he’d seen it in the paper.   Two weeks later he could see the humor in the whole thing, just a bit.

“It was original.” She allowed with a faint smile of her own. 

Tony had been told many, many times that his own skill with self preservation rivaled that of a lemming on acid. It made him a great superhero really, but a really terrible person.

 “So,” he leaned back in his chair affecting a serious mien. “Would you like to go and we can make fun of all the self-important people?”

She got that curious look on her face again, the one that meant he’d surprised her. 

“Aren’t you one of those self-important people?”

“Nope.” Tony popped the p with a smirk.  “I work for a living.”  He had missed that eye roll. “We can grab a dinner and then onto the show.”

“Not a date.” She said crossing her arms over her chest. 

“Not a date.” He assured her keeping the playful smirk on his face.  He had expected her to say no.

~*~

09/15/1990

Tony never liked waking up.  He really didn’t like waking up when his head spun and his mouth tasted like something had died in it.  His stomach rolled and it was all he could do not to roll over and hurl.

Hangover without drinking, check.

He blinked his eyes open to clear the crud and the grit out of them. 

“Here.”

He didn’t think about the voice, didn’t care about it, just that a container of something was in his hands before his stomach rebelled.  Muscles locked he held on until there was nothing left to come up. 

It helped, a little.

Once his stomach stopped twisting, other things grabbed his attention. He blinked away the grit and the tears to see a blur of red and white.  Red hair, pale skin and a pair of green eyes stared down at him. 

“Mr. Stark.”

Rushman, he forced himself to remember that.  Had to keep in in mind.

“Tony.”

He forced open eyes that he hadn’t realized had closed.  No real light, what filtered in from the windows,  (Tiny slits too narrow to climb out), the door, (metal industrial grade steel).  

He focused on that face.  A bruise was blooming across her left cheek and without thought he reached up.

She jerked away, of course she did. 

Rushman not Romanov.

Her dress was dirty and ripped. 

It slammed into him.

/ _“Have fun on your date.” Ethan whispered and Tony glared as his driver’s low sense of humor.  He knew they were trying to “help”.  Maybe help him into an early grave._

_“Careful Donavan,” he hissed when the man held the car door open for him.  “Or we’ll revisit the whole who’s paying your salary argument. “_

_The bastard just smirked.  Before offering a hand to help Nat-Ms. Rushman, he can’t let that slip, out of the car._

_Taking a page out of old cap’s book Tony held out an arm making it clear that it wasn’t a demand just a request.  A smile flittered across her lips and Natalie shook her head, but she did take his arm. /_

They had gone to dinner.  Suffered through painful small talk and played games of lying to each other. He lied about his motivations, well the source of his motivations.   She lied about her background.  

_/He watched Natalie stride up to him.  No hesitation, no warning.  The flash of metal in her hand, and Tony flinched away when she injected something into his neck._

_“Oh God, are you gonna steal my kidney and sell it? Could you please not do anything awful for five seconds? What did she just do to me?”/_

_/”Isn't that the WHY we fight? So we can end the fight and go home? “  
“Well, you amazingly failed!”/_

“Stark.”

When Romanov’s voice sounded icy and cold people died.  Tony forced his wondering attention back to her.

“What happened?” He managed to get out from between chattering teeth.

“Kidnapped.”  And doesn’t she sound pissed. 

He needed to focus.  “Gala?”

He could see the frustration in her eyes.  “After the gala. In the car.”

He frowned. “Ethan…wouldn’t.”

“It wasn’t the same car that dropped us off, and neither of us noticed.”

They would have had to be drugged if the infamous Black Widow had missed it. 

“They dosed you again when they pulled us out.” She touched at his arm.  Through the rips in his shirt he saw the injection site.

“Guards?” Little by little it was getting better.

“At least two outside.” The red head reported but now there was a strange glint in her eyes. 

He nodded and staggered to his feet.  They couldn’t see out, which meant the guards couldn’t see in either. 

He leaned against the wall nearest to the door.  Scanning the room Tony couldn’t see any cameras, no recesses that would indicate hidden ones. 

“Weapons?”

That question earned him a raised eyebrow.  Natalie Rushman was a secretary, not a world renowned assassin.  Tony hadn’t wanted to show his hand, not to Rushman of all people, but he didn’t want to rot in where ever this was either.

The room shook throwing them both down.

They managed to scramble to their feet in time for another hollow boom.

Tony heard the sound of retreating boots, and had to smile.

It ached in a way he hadn’t really felt before.  He missed it. There wouldn’t be a giant green ball of anger issues, or a blond god of thunder out there.  Of all the things he’d he missed it would be that and them.

A sharp twist of the door knob popped it open.  The halls were quiet. Dust trickled down, but there was nothing.  No people, no doors and certainly no more weapons.  There were sounds of fighting, yelled orders and confirmations.  Things screamed and choked off.

Three more halls and they were at the stairs. And Tony starred at the armed and armored man moving his way down with loping stride.

“Heyla Boss.”  The sapphire eyed man smirked.  “Ready to leave this party?”

One of these days he really would sit down with the members of his staff just to get a clear answer from any of them as to what the hell. But not now.  He’d let them take the lead, let them be the “rescuers”.  But he did take an ear piece and he didn’t refuse the weapon.  Let Rushman think of that what she will.

They were on the move.

“Good man.” Tony said instead of the hundreds of other comments.

Eilian’s voice echoed through the piece. “- SHIELD’s got a perimeter set up,  herding anything that can still walk that way.”

“I’ve got Glitch.” Ethan reported.

Tony mouth the name with a glare, but his driver didn’t turn back.

“Nasty things popping up like that.”  And he was going to kill her.

It was the same and it wasn’t.  It was a team, one that could be his, if he would but let it.  But then Coulson caught his eye, the speculation on the man’s face as he watched the way that Ethan moved and the report that Eilian gave.

And another idea came to life.


	14. Chapter 13 - Maybe I'm broken, Maybe I'm wrong.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plans seldom survive the first engagement. 
> 
> Time is the greatest enemy of all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from The Fall by Imagine Dragons. 
> 
> Sorry for the delay. More about that at the end.  
> This is a shorter chapter than I normally post, but thought I owed it to all those still reading this story.
> 
> So many thanks to all of you.

 

11/05/1990

 

“Run it again.” Tony’s eyes weren’t on the monitors, he didn’t need to see the data scrolling across the screen.

“Sir.”  JARVIS’s voice, electronic and stiff, but if he listened, really listened Tony thought he could hear the faintest hints of exasperation and a touch of fondness.

Maybe he was just projecting.

Or was it remembering and wishing. 

“I know.”  Because he did.  His hands played with the thing in his lap, but he wasn’t looking at it, couldn’t look at anything but that space.  Not the monitors, and not the machines.   Every inch a chaotic mix of papers and pictures.  Diagrams peaked out from behind scraps of writing.  His eye caught on the odd word or phrase.  But most of it was short hand and other in codes.  Different things scribbled down so only he and JARVIS could read. 

A tangle web of information set so that it looked to be a hopeless mess.  Two goals tangential and interdependent. 

But Tony could separate them, could see them.  When he closed his eyes, he could find them, relate them and consider only those pieces.

His secrets, his mission plastered for anyone to see if they bothered to look, and then to understand.

Not that it mattered. 

Tony knew, he understood exactly what JARVIS was saying. 

One or other. 

_/ “We need a plan of attack. “_

_“I have a plan, attack.”/_

Simple straightforward without any bells and whistles. 

_/ “Have you ever heard of subtly?”_

_“Hum a few bars and we’ll see if it sounds familiar?”/_

Take out the Soldier as he tried to kill his parents.  Quick, clean efficient…in the suit.  With the suit, he was more, as close to a match for that Super Soldier.  He’d fought the Captain in one, had improved it, had changed it.  And when it had all come down he had held his own against two of them. 

Without the suit…

“Thirty-seven months.” He repeated because he had to taste the shape of the words, to say them.

To make sure they were real. And saying them freed him, he could look away from the plans and the planning.  But he didn’t look far, just down at the gunmetal gray creation in his lap. 

Gray, not gold, not red.

The same slide, the same click as his locked into place over his right hand.  That half heard hum sounded the same.

But it wasn’t

It was heavy, heavier than any of the others he’d crafted, save the cave. 

Colder too, without the wirings and all the systems that had been sacrificed for time, for technology.  Twisting his wrist Tony look at the palm and used his free hand to trace the bare lines of electric blue leaking out.  So much he had wanted to do, so much he needed to do.  The tolerances he had once been able to machine to had been an afterthought, a way that it had always been, a given.

“Based on the current project requirements, yes sir.”

Every extra moment, every spare second Tony had worked on it.  The plans, hours and hours of revising, editing.  Scrutinizing every inch, first for what needed and then for what they could get. 

“I am sorry sir.”

“Not in the habit of blaming the messenger, J.” 

He’s not, not when he knows full well whose fault it really is.  And whose failure.

There is nothing left to strip away, nothing to streamline.  There will be no brilliant thing idea that would miraculously make a full formed suit. 

“Without the full suit?”  He needed say something, anything to keep it all inside his head.

/ _“Take off the suit and what are you?”_ /

He knows the answer to this too.

“Based on the input provided of the subject’s enhancements and known skill level, there is a 27% chance of stopping the attempted assassination as per the parameters listed.”

Parameters listed, things he could remember. 

His lips quirked.  “That high?” 

“And a five percent probability of walking away without serious or debilitating injury.”

“Lovely.” Tony runs his hands through his hair trying not to wince away from the roughness of the metal.  “So, we’ve cut every corner, and trimmed every minute.”

“There are alternatives sir.”

“Wow me J, I could use it.”

“We could bring in assistance.”

Glove on his right and in his left Tony could feel the cool slick glass, the percussion of ice as it chimed, and the heady scent of scotch.

“Who?  Romanov?  Not when she’s playing with Stane.  Banner’s wrapped up in college, not a mean green to be seen.  And then we have Rhodey without a suit and Bird brain barely shaving.” He slammed his hands down in the table.  “And Cap’s a popsicle we need to save from freezer burn. So how’s that list shaping up?”

“And what about Ms. Rayne and Mr. Donovan.”

Tempting, it sounds tempting.  But he’d trusted, he’d believed in people he’d known for years.

“If you really believe that sir, then why are we doing this?”

Quantity of hours in bed did not in any definition equal quality of sleep.

“Because he deserves better than he got.  He deserves to have a life as a person, not a pawn or symbol.” In the silence, Tony sat back in his chair his chest heaving.  “Jesus.”  He said stripping off the gauntlet and tossing it on the closest bench.  “I’m sorry J.”

“Sir.” Forgiveness, always forgiveness.

_/ “Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist.”/_

There are things in Tony’s head, pictures that make him grateful that he lacked Roger’s talent with a pencil.  A tree line road, still and frosted with snow. 

Parameters listed, he knows the speed, the direction of Howard’s car.  He had memorized the man’s blood alcohol levels and the size of the skid marks on the road.  Every piece of the _accident_ is written in permanent script and screen.

It’s the rest that he is missing.  Even his memory isn’t as sharp, isn’t as clear for those two minutes of film.

_/ “This isn't going to change what happened.”_

_“I don't care, he killed my mom.”/_

He’s been to that stretch of road, been to that place.  Reaching out he traced the picture, a strip of road, of trees and nothing really.  But it’s the same, the angle, the height.  Tony had figured that out at least.  Where the camera had been.

But he can’t recall, can’t calculated where the Soldier would be standing.  How he would be to take the shot and disable the car.  Nothing had been on the report, nothing on which of the tires had been blows, how they had been blown. 

And he can’t remember enough to stop it from happening.

That road, that shot and he can’t take the Soldier out of the equation. He can’t just make it –

“Son of a bitch.” His eyes widened in realization. 

“Sir?”

“Forget about the Soldier.”  He said scrambling over the notes.  Everything he could think of as to why.  His parents had been leaving on vacation, a promised trip to somewhere. He pulled down a strip and read through the codes scribble. 

“If you can’t move Mohammad.”

“I believe the quote is-“

“Not now J.” 

A trip, they had told him they were going on a trip.  A quick stop and they would be heading off to the Caribbean or something. 

/ _The Soldier opening the trunk, removing the case_./

A quick detour to DC. 

/ _Four feral soldier frozen in their cells_./

“There is a litany,” Tony said to no one. “A list of names of all the people that had tried to recreate the serum.”

/ _“Not worth it boy.”  Tony stared at his father, the blurry eyes and the pale complexion.  “It’s not worth it.  They can’t do it.”_ /

“A litany of idiots and fools, he called them. Playing with things better left of alone. Erskine, Zola, Schmitt, Nagel.”

/ _Banner with his eyes downcast, his shoulders tight._

 _“Banner, Sterns, Burstein.”_ /

 “Hundreds of men dead because of a fantasy, a dream that shouldn’t be created.” Tony recited it from memory, his voice low to matching his father’s actually hearing the sorrow the man had put into it. 

Tony had taken a look at the serum, at all the research he could get his hands on back when he’d had to work with Extremis.  He’d looked at it again when all of SHIELD’s data had been downloaded. 

It had been one of the few things he’d pulled from the feed.

“Howard’s a metal and munitions man.”  Tony rubbed his forehead leaning into the feel of Dummy’s weight at his side.  “The only chemistry he’s ever looked at was better ways to make things go boom.”

“He has been hailed as a genius.”  JARVIS reminded him.

/ _“When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?_

_“Last night. The packet. Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?”/_

That didn’t even hurt, not now. 

“Geniuses, we get comfortable.  We get into an area and that’s own thing.”  He paced the room while his brain worked, he needed the question as well as the answer. “Sometimes we get pulled out of that rut.  A need, save the world.” 

God knew that he’s had to do that.  Pull something out of the air to keep the world from falling apart. 

“Or a want.”  

It was starting to take shape. 

“Something to prove.”  JARVIS’s mechanical hum not of agreement, but Tony would take it and it made him crack a smile. “But that’s biology, biochemistry.”  He threw his hands in the air.  “It’s a lot of squishy sciences that he’s never shown an interest in, never touched.”

Staring at the board he’s not seeing the road, he’s not seeing the plane.  In his head he’s seeing a skinny kid from Brooklyn.

“This isn’t something that you can come up with in a year.”  There hadn’t been any sign of it, not in any of Howard’s notes, not in any of his materials.  “This is a lifetime of work.”

Tony sat stunned at the conclusions, the connections that were snapping together faster and faster.

_/“You are my greatest creation.”/_

And it answered so many questions too.

Howard hadn’t been killed as a threat.  There had been nothing he’d found out that cause Hydra to move. 

No, the Soldier hadn’t eliminated a threat. Howard had only been in the way. 

Not Erskine’s formula, but close enough that Hydra had wanted what the man had already manufactured. 

And had wanted to keep him from creating more.

Others had tried, it was _the_ question.  But only Howard had been killed for it. 

Like Erskine.

Jesus, what the hell did you get into Dad?

_/ “I can’t believe you of all people would support this.”_

_“We need limits.  We need to be reined in.”/_

Nearly fifty years. Why the hell would you do it?

“No vita rays, so not perfect.”  Tony whispered.  “But better, better than anything before it.”

_/ “What happened to the guy that privatized world peace?”/_

“And if Hydra would kill to get it. It wasn’t going to someone they could control.”

“I don’t understand.”  Tony realized half of what he’d been saying, half of what he’d been thinking had been in his head. 

“This wasn’t a year’s worth of work JARVIS.”  Tony grabbed his jacket “Dial up Aunt Peggy.” Tony ran to the ‘shop door.  “We need to have a talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay apologize all around the holiday season was difficult. Dealing with someone coming to grips with depression and they were able to finally admit that they needed help. 
> 
> And to top that all off once upon a time I had three copies of the outline and blocked chapters for this story. One was on a laptop that died in November. No worries right? Still two left? 
> 
> One was on a stick drive that vanished into the aether. 
> 
> And the last? Well that one was on Dropbox and some how managed to get reverted back to a copy from 12/2015.  
> Soooo...  
> Updates are going to be longer and I apologize. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Let me know.


	15. Chapter 14 - When the days are cold And the cards all fold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One day, Tony will figure out just how all this happened to him.  
> One day he will know just who to thank for this wonderful opportunity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: Implied child abuse in the last section. Also medical stuff. 
> 
> First of all an apology. I hate this chapter. It was supposed to go one way and that didn't work and didn't until I wrote it this way. And then I kept having to look at it and play with it.
> 
> So, it isn't beta read and barely grammar checked. If you see something glaring please let me know. I just wanted done with this one. 
> 
> But plot needs must. 
> 
> Takes place the same day as the last chapter. 
> 
> Chapter title: Demons by Imagine Dragons.

Call it Fate, Tony has a few other choice names for it, but once against it is screwing with him. 

He’d rushed out of the house his head to full of problem solving and full of caffeine and had only noted it was day time, not early and not dusk.  There had been no real thought about what time it had actually been or even really what damn day it was.

And now, he taps his hands against the steering wheel, he was paying for it. 

The highways and byways of upstate New York weren’t like driving in the city, or god forbid Manhattan, but they had their ebbs and flows. 

And right now, it is not flowing anywhere. 

One hour and forty five minutes, he glares at the idiot who was trying, very unsuccessfully to move into Tony’s lane.  One hour and forty five minute of slow and fast, back and forth, and miles upon miles of brake lights. 

He can see the exit and if the out of state morons would learn to drive.  He breathed in and out.  It isn’t really the traffic.  It isn’t the continuing reminders of how fast the suit had been, or the last iteration of the quinjet. 

No, being stuck like this…alone like this is the hell. 

The radio didn’t help.  There was no satellite channels, there was no JARVIS channeling in Tony’s latest play lists. 

And so he is left with the one person that no one should ever be left alone with…himself.

He’d tried to plan, tried to think of how to approach Aunt Peggy, because the last thing he wanted, the last thing he needed was to trip up to say the wrong thing and be on the receiving end of one of Agent Carter’s famous questions. 

He can't charm it out of her, can’t push the information he wanted, needed, to confirm.  The minute he got her back up, the second he miss stepped and he would get nothing. 

And probably babble out everything. 

Not like he hadn’t had enough experience with that. 

/ _“Tony.” The glare in those green eyes made him freeze._

_Tony raised his hands up in supplication.  “I’ve got nothing.” He babbled because he couldn’t escape.  There was no backing up slowly, he was trapped in his workshop.  He wasn’t going to sacrifice one of the bots and there were no other convenient distractions to give their lives to the cause._

_The growl rumbled making his hindbrain stand up and take notice._

_He looked up, looked over at the deadly, very deadly woman striding his way.  The loose t-shirt and the yoga pants did nothing to hide the lethality striding his way.  The splotches of green splashed across that pale skin did nothing to disguise it, to make it any less pants wettingly terrifying._

_“I blame Clint.”_

_“Stark!”_   /

There are no voices in his head; there are worse things, memories.  And if planning how to take on Peggy Carter kept those voices silent; then he is going to plan all the live long day. 

But there isn't a spy trick he could use that she hadn’t seen.  Fury had learned his tricks from somewhere after all. 

There wasn’t a show man razzle dazzle he could try.  One, she is his godmother and NO.  And two, she’d dealt with Howard, as much as Tony would like to not even think that sentence again.  And she is more than likely immune.

Plus godmother. 

And the Steve thing.

So nothing short of honest, up front, and sincere was going to get him anywhere.

Right, the Star Spangle man with a plan is out and the kid from Brooklyn is in. 

So yeah, after an hour and fifty minutes, he can do this.

After all it couldn’t- .

_/ “Don’t even think that.  You’ll jinx it tinman.”_

_“Shut up birdbrain.” /_

He takes the exit.

**

He’d been called a genius.  Hell he called himself that too. 

But apparently in the end…he is an idiot.

He hadn’t paid attention.  Hadn’t tied the lack of cars and the stillness of the house to anything, hadn’t even thought about it. 

Nope.  Tony parks the car, tucked a little out of sight and walks right up and into the house with nothing on his mind but the best way to start.

And he walks into nothing.

No dragon, secretary manning the desk.  There is no housekeeper walking through. 

There is nothing and no one. 

And then the slam of a car door.

When Tony looks out, of course there is another car parked obnoxiously in the drive, right in front of the house.   It isn’t flashy, isn’t memorable.  It is a common every day, serviceable vehicle.

And has the starring role in some of Tony’s tamer nightmares.

Now there is noise and motion; footsteps on the stairs and footsteps on the sidewalk. 

His eyes dart.  He knows this place, knows every room and ever hall. 

Sensible shoes on the stairs and the flash of a ring, plain and silver, on the banister. 

The door knob twists.

Tony moves.  Ducking away and around, out of sight.

“Peggy!”  Howard calls before Tony heard the front door closed.  “You won’t believe what Colonel Ross wants now.”

It is hard, it is very hard to resist thudding his head against the wall, but Tony manages...barely. 

One day, Tony will figure out just how all this happened to him.

He slumps against the wall listening to the patter and the pitch of their voices.  Hears the back and forth of old friends and picks apart the pieces.

Any plan that channeled ‘What would Steve Roger’s do’ is ashes.

/ “A plan seldom survives the first meeting with the enemy.”/

If Tony walks out there now nothing good will come of it.  If he interrupts this…whatever it is there is no scenario he could manage where he could ask the brutally honest questions and get unequivocally honest answers in exchange.  Not with Howard.

One day he will know just who to _thank_ for this wonderful opportunity. 

“You need to leave it alone Howard.” 

Tony pressed his ear up against not the wall, but the air vent.  They were in the dining room now and he could hear it all clear as a bell. 

 “I can’t Peggy.”

No, Tony won’t be Captain America today.

“You promised, back when the last vial was destroyed Howard, you promised.”

Tony’s grin is full of teeth. 

But maybe he could find out just what a one eyed pirate would do.

~*~

Some people, most people really, woke with a start.  They jerked and startled and snapped their eyes open.

He didn’t. 

Not if there was pain. 

Not if there was silence.

And there were plenty of both. 

Sparks of pain raced through every muscle.  It wasn’t immediate, it wasn’t overwhelming.  His thoughts ticked and tocked until he could understand why. 

Drugs, and lots and lots of them.

But beyond that, beyond the cotton wool and tequila feeling, it wasn’t uncomfortable. 

But it wasn’t comfortable. 

The sharp tang of bleach warred with the scrap and scratch of over washed linen.  Metal frames and springs he felt despite, maybe they were framed by a thin mattress that smelled of disinfectant moved like plastic.

Hospital. 

But there was nothing to hear. 

He could feel the pinch and press of the IV needle against his arm and the cool stickiness of monitor leads.

He chanced it. Shifting, just a little, the pain spike roaring up his back.

He knew better than to scream.  That had been beaten into him. 

So he turned his head, just like someone asleep might shift around and over.

But he heard no monitor, unless the leads were to nothing. 

He heard nothing of anyone around.  And he should have.  It was Hospital Waiting Design 101, chair that might look inviting, look comfortable but never were.  The ones that no matter how you sat, how you move made the loudest of sounds; or maybe that was just any sound in the hushed stillness.

But he should have heard something.

So he risked it.  His breathing never changes, he’d learn way too early how to regulate that.  And his heart beat never rose. 

He managed bare slits because he couldn’t say, couldn’t tell what might be out there.

Light.

Not blinding, not glaring, but still enough to stab at his eyes and send a sharp pulsing throb past the drugs.

He refused to flinch, refused twitch. 

The pain in his head roared, but it was ignored.

And soon enough his eyes adjusted. 

White curtains cut off his bed.  White sheets, they smelled of strong blench and blood.  Low light glinted off the rails of the bed. 

Nothing.  No one. 

No monitors, no people. 

Blue eyes snapped open and he took in everything. 

Cheap fluorescent light spilling in from an open door.  Low and dim, he should still have been able to hear to buzz and the snap as they flickered.  Not a watery thud and thump in time with his pulse and his headache.

But he could still see.

The titles, worn to gray and faded, scuffed by a thousand feet.  The yellow tinge to the edges of white curtain as the laundry battled against humidity as well as germs.   

The glint of a stray beam off of metal in the ceiling.  Not just the suppressant spout, but the grills and the covers.

He flicked off the sheet.  The leads went to nothing and the IV neglected and almost empty.  He pulls them all off and out without a flinch.

Standing was torture.  Balancing on the bed he refused to let the black swamp his vision.

He had to go, to leave.  The brand burning on his back was proof enough of why.  There was nothing for him here, no one would miss him.  No one would care. 

Reaching was agony, surging past the drugs. 

When he pulled himself up and into the shaft, he had to bit his lip.  He tasted blood. But it didn’t matter.  He lay on the cool metal, resting his head down and panted through it.

It didn’t matter.

Getting out.  Getting away.

That was all that mattered.

***

 

 


End file.
